 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 494, 11 February 2013 |
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Welcome to this year's sixth issue of DistroWatch Weekly! It has been an exciting week for users of open source software with big announcements coming out of the Ubuntu and GNOME projects. In this week's edition of DistroWatch Weekly we will look at the new developments underway in the GNOME community and look at the changes coming to Unity, Ubuntu's primary desktop environment. We also bring you news of Canonical's plans to launch a phone powered by the popular Ubuntu distribution. This week we turn a spotlight on server operating systems. Jesse Smith takes FreeBSD 9.1 for a spin and reports on his experience and how it compares to running Linux distributions on home servers. Plus we take a look at which Linux distributions are preferred for hosting web servers. In the Questions and Answers section we look at the common problem of broken software following an upgrade and share tips on how to deal with this issue. As always we look at the distribution releases of the past week, look forward to new releases to come and share news, reviews and podcasts from Around the Web. We wish you a pleasant week and happy reading!
Content:
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (21MB) and MP3 (34MB) formats
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Bringing home FreeBSD 9.1
 At home I have an old machine which, around a decade ago, performed as someone's desktop computer. Abandoned by its former owners, it now sits in my home and gets used as a test bunny whenever I'm feeling experimental. For the past several months the machine has been running Ubuntu Server, partly because Ubuntu is quick to install and, when I break it, it's quick to re-install. In addition Ubuntu's installer was the first of several which was able to run on the hardware. The machine has been holding up well with Ubuntu and I've had no problems setting it up as a web server, ownCloud server, file server and test bed for ZFS-on-Linux technology. Still, I find when my computers work too well for too long I get bored. In order to experience some excitement I started thinking about what other operating system I might put on my test box and settled on FreeBSD.
There are a number of different download options for FreeBSD. The project supports four different architectures (i386, amd64, sparc64, powerpc64) and the i386 build is available in a few different flavours. We can download a CD-sized ISO, a 2.5GB DVD image or an image for USB flash drives. I opted to work with the DVD image. Booting from the downloaded image brings up a text menu asking if we would like to run the FreeBSD installer or make use of the command shell available on the media. Jumping into the installer we are asked to confirm our keyboard map and provide a hostname for our computer. We are then asked which optional components (games, documentation, ports and system source code) we would like to install. The next series of text-based menus deal with partitioning.
The partitioning section is where I hit my first snag. By default FreeBSD uses UFS as its file system, but one of the perks of running a FreeBSD system is having built in support for ZFS and its many advanced features. According to the FreeBSD documentation the installer supports ZFS. Maybe it does, but I couldn't get it to work. When I specified I wanted to set up partitions or slices using ZFS the installer would accept the order, then when I tried to proceed to the next step (formatting the hard drive) an error would appear saying the ZFS partition (or slice) could not be accessed. Following this I would be asked to restart the install process, beginning from the first screen of the installer. After my fourth attempt I finally gave in and accepted UFS as my primary file system.
After partitioning has been completed we are asked to set a root password and configure the system's network card. Here I ran into another problem as the installer wasn't able to make use of DHCP through my network card and I had to manually configure my connection. We are then invited to enable system services, such as secure shell support and network time synchronization. Our next step is to create a user account and fill in all its details, such as the user's shell, group and even the permissions on the user's home directory. Earlier I mentioned there are some optional packages we can install, including games, documentation and source code. I opted to install the documentation package. The installer informed me it was unable to perform the installation of the documentation package, though it was not clear as to why. With that the installation and initial configuration was complete and I was able to reboot the system to begin using FreeBSD.
Booting FreeBSD brings us to a text console where we are presented with a login prompt. My first order of business upon logging in was to check for system updates. At time of writing no updates to FreeBSD 9.1 were available. Looking around a little we find the system comes with a complete collection of UNIX userland tools and documentation in the form of man and info pages. As FreeBSD is currently in the process of switching their build processes from the GNU Compiler Collection to the Clang compiler both compilers are present on the base system. During the installation process I had requested OpenSSH be enabled and I found this service running in the background. The secure shell provided by OpenSSH allowed me to login remotely and I had no problem enabling public key logins. The system is quite clean, less than 30 process run on the default install and the system only uses around 50MB of active memory. Of course a server without services isn't much more than an ineffective space heater so my next task was to install additional software.
One of the more attractive features to find its way into FreeBSD in recent years is pkg-ng, a "next generation" package manager which provides FreeBSD users with modern package handling similar to Debian's APT or Red Hat's YUM. The pkg-ng software works with binary packages which have been built from the FreeBSD ports collection. Trying to run pkg-ng the first time causes the software to bootstrap itself, enabling the default repository. So far, so good. However, performing searches for packages turned up no results. Checking for repository updates showed the local package database was up to date. Having used pkg-ng last year I was a bit puzzled as to the lack of available software packages. Some browsing of the FreeBSD website revealed binary packages for pkg-ng and the traditional FreeBSD package management tools had been taken off-line following a security breach in late 2012. At the time of writing the repository of binary packages has been off-line for approximately two months and there is no estimate as to when the repository may be brought back on-line. This means software must be added to the system and upgraded by compiling software in the FreeBSD ports collection.
There were several pieces of software I wanted to install on my FreeBSD machine. These included a FTP server, the Apache web server, PHP, MySQL and ownCloud. The FTP server, Apache, PHP and MySQL server all built and installed. I found the FTP server would start and operate without any problems, however Apache refused to start. After some failed attempts to get it running the problem turned out to be Apache didn't like my machine's hostname ("xena") and required a fully qualified hostname in order to start. I provided Apache with a complete (though fake) domain name and it worked properly from then on. I also found that by default installing the PHP language does not provide PHP support for the Apache web server. I went back and reconfigured the PHP port and rebuilt it. This provided me with a PHP module which I could add to Apache and my web server was up and running.
The ownCloud software provided its own set of challenges. Getting the software installed from its port was easy, but I soon found ownCloud was installed with file system permissions which would prevent the service from being accessible. Additionally, the ownCloud port provides configuration steps to assist the user in enabling the cloud service on Apache services. The steps provided did not yield a working ownCloud system. Tweaking the ownCloud permissions and adjusting the software's configuration allowed me to access my newest web service. FreeBSD has long had a more hands-on reputation compared to Linux distributions and so I expected a little more manual configuration to be required. This was par for the course. What I did find odd however is that, by default, the PHP port does not supply a module for Apache and requires the user to specifically build this module. Considering how server oriented FreeBSD is I am surprised no one has created a unified Apache-MySQL-PHP (AMP) port for the operating system yet. It would certainly speed up the initial set up process.
One of the benefits of running FreeBSD is the excellent built-in support for the feature-rich file system called ZFS. FreeBSD comes with a modern implementation of ZFS which allows for the storage of massive amount of data, instant recovery from system crashes, instant file system snapshots, mirroring and data deduplication. FreeBSD provides a good deal of clear documentation for dealing with ZFS's many features and it makes setting up new file systems fairly straight forward. While I wasn't able to get ZFS working using the system installer, I was able to add devices and partitions post-install and migrate my users' home directories to ZFS. In the past people have claimed ZFS requires large amounts of memory to work. However, for simple home use I have found ZFS's memory use hardly shows up on the system at all and multiple devices with hundreds of gigabytes of data can be stored without any problems on a system with 512MB of RAM.
In the end, I did get all the services and features I wanted installed and running. The process of getting everything in place on FreeBSD required a good deal more time compared to performing similar setups with Ubuntu or CentOS -- around six hours for installing the operating system and compiling packages on FreeBSD next to an hour to install and configure everything with Ubuntu Server. Most of the extra time was due to compiling third-party software rather than having convenient binary packages. Another delay came from trouble-shooting Apache and ownCloud errors which I did not experience upon installing the same services on Ubuntu. Still, the end results achieved with both operating systems are quite similar. Aside from the time required to get all the pieces in place, the main practical difference is the organization of those pieces once they have been added to the system. Where Linux distributions tend to intermix the operating system, applications and services, FreeBSD makes a clear separation.
The operating system and the software we install on FreeBSD are divided, making for a clean working environment. I found FreeBSD used slightly less memory and ran fewer processes than my old Ubuntu Server install, though the difference is quite small. Setting up a FreeBSD server takes a bigger investment and makes for a more educational experience compared with Ubuntu which provided more of a quick install-and-go experience. Both have proven to be stable and both come with several years of support. FreeBSD is a powerful and useful platform, though the lack of binary packages does give me pause as it means (at least for the time being) future security updates will require more work and each update will require additional compile time. It is my hope the FreeBSD team is able to restore the pkg-ng repository to its former glory as its binary packages are a big time and energy saver for the project's users.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith and Ladislav Bodnar) |
Web server statistics, Ubuntu enhanced search, Anaconda, PC-BSD updates, GNOME developments
 The number of users each Linux distribution has is a famously difficult statistic to nail down, however that fact doesn't prevent people from trying. The website W3Techs has put together some numbers and graphs in an attempt to judge the market share of popular Linux distributions on web servers. The graphs show the current leader in web server installs is the community-run Debian GNU/Linux distribution. Another community project, CentOS, takes second place while two commercial distributions, Ubuntu and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), take third and forth places, respectively. It is perhaps interesting to note that, according to W3Tech's statistics, both Debian and Ubuntu (two closely related projects) are increasing in market share while Red Hat and CentOS (two other closely related projects) have dropped in popularity over the past twelve months.
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 In recent months the Ubuntu developers have placed an increasing emphasis on search with the Unity Dash being the focal point of their efforts. Going forward the Dash is going to receive more attention which will not only provide users with more search lenses (now called "master scopes"), but the search system will gather feedback about which scopes return desired results and learn to tailor its results to the user's preferences. Ubuntu Community member Alan Bell writes, "This means that your client might have 100 or more locally installed search scopes, but the server will advise it which are likely to give good results. Now for the scary bit, once you have looked at the results and perhaps clicked on something then your client pings the server again to tell it which scope produced the most relevant result. This means that the server can learn from this feedback about which scopes produce high quality results for that keyword, and perhaps rank that one a bit higher in future recommendations lists." The new, smart master scopes feature is expected to be included in the upcoming release of Ubuntu 13.04.
The Ubuntu community also learned this past week that the popular Linux distribution will be coming to mobile devices in the final months of 2013. Michael Hickins of The Wall Street Journal reports Ubuntu may begin shipping on smart phones in October. "Smart phones running the open source Ubuntu operating system will be available to customers beginning in October 2013, according to Mark Shuttleworth, founder and CEO of Canonical Ltd. Canonical provides services for corporate customers using Ubuntu open source software. Application developers will have access to the smart phone operating system, which is optimized for the Galaxy Nexus handset manufactured by Samsung Electronics Co., in late February."
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 Fedora's new system installer, the revamped Anaconda, has come under heavy criticism from many quarters, including reviewers and even some well-known Linux developers, many of whom questioned the reason behind the radical redesign of a well-established tool that has been around for years. But as explained by Will Woods, one of the developers of the new Anaconda, the rewrite of the ageing installer was long overdue: "Back in August 2009 we were trying to redesign the storage UI to handle modern storage needs. This turned out to require rewriting a lot of the storage backend code (again) because the existing Anaconda code was basically all duct tape and bubble gum, creaking under the strain of modern demands. You might think I’m exaggerating, but keep in mind that Anaconda was originally written in 1999, for Red Hat Linux 6.1. It was designed to run off a 1.44 MB floppy disk, using the still-newish Linux 2.2.x kernel. In 2009 it still had its own custom initrd init system called 'loader' written entirely in C. So Anaconda had its own copy of stuff like mount, losetup and mknod, but no Bash before the GUI started. Good luck trying to debug anything!"
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 Dru Lavigne, a well-known FreeBSD and PC-BSD developer, has written an interesting post in which she quotes Kris Moore, the founder of PC-BSD, voicing his dissatisfaction with the PC-BSD release process. To take the project into the future, he believes, it needs to switch to a rolling-release style of OS updates: "First of all, I want to let you know, that I’ve personally not been satisfied with the frequency of PC-BSD releases and updates. With us tracking the upstream FreeBSD releases, it has really tied our hands getting new releases out to the public. The past couple of releases had a delay of almost a year between them, which is WAY too long in my opinion. To further compound the problem, our build system wasn’t designed to do frequent updates of packages and our utilities, which made getting updates out to the community a long and tedious process. This is all going to change. What we are looking at going to now is more of a “Rolling-Release” model, first for our utilities and system packages, and eventually for the FreeBSD base itself." Exciting times ahead for those who prefer to run FreeBSD on their desktops.
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 The GNOME project has been in the news a lot this past week. First it was announced the GNOME project would consider JavaScript as the primary language for the development of new applications on the GNOME desktop. Other languages will continue to be supported, but new developers will be guided by JavaScript tutorials and documentation for developing in JavaScript will be given priority. As GNOME developer Travis Reitter wrote on the Let's Push Things Forward blog, "It's critical that everyone understands this decision as a plan to elevate the language, bindings, tools, and documentation to a level of quality we have not yet achieved. It is not a decision to abandon any other language bindings. We will continue to distribute other bindings and documentation as we do now and compatibility for the other languages will continue to be developed as they are today by the developers involved with those modules."
In other GNOME-related news, The H reports GNOME developers will soon begin work on a new distribution independent sandbox model for applications. This should allow third-party applications to be bundled with all of their dependencies in a single file and installed on the user's computer just by clicking on the application archive. The application would be installed in an isolated area of the file system for added security. "GNOME developer Alexander Larsson writes that the entire concept is to go hand in hand with efforts to improve app isolation. For example, the developers plan to use techniques that are also used for containers to mount each app image in a separate area. Only the programming interfaces that are listed in the manifest will be available in these areas. The apps are not planned to have direct access to a user's home directory."
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Over the years more and more businesses have turned to open source software to help them run their infrastructure. The low cost, the ability to audit the source code and the extendability provided by open source products are great features for enterprises. However, giving away one's source code raises certain challenges when it comes to turning a profit. Last week Katherne Noyes wrote a blog post in which she talks with the CTO, CEO and a Vice President of the successful ownCloud project. They discuss the problems ownCloud tries to solve and why they feel it has been successful as a business. Frank Karlitschek says ownCloud got its start when, "`Three years ago I had an opportunity to keynote at a KDE event in San Diego, and I thought, let's look a bit into the future,' he recalled. `I could already see the trend of things moving to Dropbox, which was pretty much the only solution for cloud at the time. I thought this was interesting, but I also saw problems.' Specifically, Karlitschek identified privacy and cost issues for home users, and was inspired to launch an open source project to help solve those problems."
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
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Broken packages and possible solutions
 Recently I have been receiving e-mails with a common theme from several Linux users. The common characteristics of these e-mails are that the person writing has been using a piece of software (perhaps a network service, perhaps a game) and, following an update, the software has stopped working. In every case either no error message appears on the user's screen or the error that appears on the user's terminal is cryptic and may indicate a segmentation fault or perhaps a missing library function. A Google search of the error message doesn't reveal any obvious causes or solutions. The final thing each of these e-mails have in common is that the person writing to me is running Arch Linux. Having had the chance to help several people through this situation I would like to share the solutions we have found that fixed the problem.
The most common cause of a program or service no longer working properly after an upgrade appears to be out of sync repositories. It takes time for packages to get replicated across all repositories and some repositories fall behind in their updates. This puts the repository out of sync with the rest of the Arch community. When this happens check the package manager's mirror list and try pulling from a mirror in a different region. There are plenty of Arch repository mirrors out there from which to choose. Once you have updated your mirror list, try updating your malfunctioning package and its dependencies.
In some cases it seems that simply removing and re-installing the program which is malfunctioning can correct the issue. I suspect this also means the local system is out of sync with the main Arch repositories and the user simply needs to let time pass before attempting to update their system again.
It may be that you have uncovered a bug. Sometimes packages are broken when they are upgraded. Be sure to check the Arch Linux forums to see if anyone has experienced the problem or has found a solution. If no one else has reported the problem, be sure to file a bug report so the developers can look into the matter.
Should you be in a hurry for a fix and no one is coming to your aid, consider building the malfunctioning package from its source code. Most open source projects include details on their website or in their source code archives on how to compile their software. This can be of great help to people looking to fix their own problems. Building a package from its source and linking it to the libraries on your own system may correct the problem or at least give you a better place from which to trouble-shoot the problem.
I hope the above suggestions will prove useful, both to Arch users and to anyone else who has run into problems following an upgrade.
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| Released Last Week |
Parsix GNU/Linux 4.0r2
Alan Baghumian has announced the availability of an updated build of Parsix GNU/Linux 4.0, a desktop distribution and live DVD based on Debian's "testing" branch: "To celebrate our 8th anniversary, we decided to release an updated version of Parsix GNU/Linux 4.0 code name 'Gloria'. This version ships with a brand-new kernel based on Linux 3.2.37 and merges Debian testing updates as of January 30, 2013. Parsix 'Gloria' is the project's first release with the GNOME 3 series and it ships with LibreOffice productivity suit by default. Gloria has a brand-new software package manager. Highlights: GNOME 3.4.2, X.Org 7.7, GRUB 2, GNU Iceweasel 18.0.1, GParted 0.12.1, Empathy 3.4.2.3, LibreOffice 3.5.4, VirtualBox 4.1.18. The live DVD has been compressed using Squashfs and xz." Read the rest of the release notes where you can find more information and upgrade instructions.
Frugalware Linux 1.8
James Buren has announced the release of Frugalware Linux 1.8, a general-purpose distribution for intermediate and advanced Linux users: "The Frugalware developer team is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Frugalware Linux 1.8, our eighteenth stable release. No new features have been added since 1.8rc2, but 157 changes have been made to fix minor bugs. If you didn't follow the changes during the pre-releases, here are the most important changes since 1.7 in no particular order: updated packages - Linux kernel 3.7.5, X.Org Server 1.13.2, GNOME 3.6, KDE 4.9, LibreOffice 3.6.3, Mozilla Firefox 18.0.1 to name a few major components; video decoding acceleration is now enabled in most multimedia applications; CPU scaling should now work out of the box on i686 and x86_64; Mesa 7.11 drivers revived to support hardware that Mesa upstream dropped support for...." Here is the brief release announcement.
Webconverger 17.0
Kai Hendry has announced the release of Webconverger 17.0, a specialist distribution designed for web kiosks - now based on Debian's "testing" branch: "Webconverger 17.0 is exciting for two reasons: new installer allowing you the choice to install to a USB stick and whole base is upgraded from 'Squeeze' to 'Wheezy'. The 'install' term can be misinterpreted as a straight copy of image. Install in Webconverger parlance means you are creating a read/write store. When you follow the USB guide you are: downloading the ISO; 'dd-ing', that is plonking the image upon the USB stick, without partitioning the USB stick (this is tricky); the new installer allows you to partition (tricky bit solved) the USB stick and use it as a read/write store." Read the full release announcement for more information and to see a photo of the installation screen.
Linpus Linux 1.9 "Lite"
Linpus Linux 1.9 "Lite", a desktop Linux distribution featuring a customised GNOME 3 desktop with HTML 5 widgets and support for touch screens, has been released: "Linpus, a leader in the field of open-source software in the consumer space, announced the release of the latest version of their Linux distro, Linpus Lite. Linpus Lite has both full touch-based and mouse and keyboard-style launchers that can be easily swapped between through a menu item on the top bar or a touchpad gesture. Both look and user experience are designed to match whether you want to interact with the device through touch or through your keyboard. In addition, for key applications multi-touch behavior has also been added. Linpus has also worked very hard on web app integration in several ways. Anyone with a Chrome webstore account can login and automatically sync their Chrome applications to the launcher." See the press release for more information.
Linpus Linux 1.9 "Lite" - a live CD with a customised GNOME 3 desktop
(full image size: 482kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
Chakra GNU/Linux 2013.02
Anke Boersma has announced the release of Chakra GNU/Linux 2013.02, the project's brand-new series featuring the KDE 4.10 desktop: "Chakra 2013.02 'Benz' (a code name that will follow the KDE 4.10 series) has been released. KDE 4.10 is about the most polished release KDE has put out to date; one feature that stands out is the fast improvements of Nepomuk. Our tools have gotten a lot of attention too, the live image has switched to using GFXboot - this will give many more options for language and keyboard settings and it adds a few hardware checking tools in a visually pleasing way. Tribe has now a dedicated keyboard page - this will avoid issues with setting the desired keyboard. The 'Dharma' artwork theme is fully updated and integration is set for all parts of the live image, GRUB bootloader, KDM and the installed desktop." See the release announcement for further details and screenshots.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Around the Web |
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Latest reviews
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Latest podcasts
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Latest newsletters
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| DistroWatch.com News |
New distributions added to database
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New distributions added to waiting list
- CoreSec Linux. CoreSec Linux is an Ubuntu-based distribution for penetrating security holes online and offline.
- GOVOnix. GOVOnix is a project based on the Xubuntu distribution where the Xfce desktop has been replaced with MATE.
- IprediaOS. IprediaOS is a Fedora-based Linux distribution that provides an anonymous environment. All network traffic is automatically and transparently encrypted and anonymised.
- RhinoLinux. RhinoLinux is an Ubuntu-based desktop-oriented distribution which aims to provide many different desktop environments, including GNOME, KDE, MATE, Unity and Xfce.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 18 February 2013. To contact the authors please send email to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, suggestions and corrections: news, donations, distribution submissions, comments)
- Bruce Patterson (feedback and suggestions: podcast edition)
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Good review (by nedvis on 2013-02-11 10:00:15 GMT from United States)
Good review of FreeBSD 9.1 Jesse but I still prefer running PCBSDsince it is so much easier and more user friendly than it's big brother FreeBSD. I Might give it a try once I remove SolusOS 1.2 but, oh boy, that SolusOS is so great.
2 • Web server statistics (by Robert on 2013-02-11 10:35:03 GMT from Germany)
This "increasing in market share" is just about web servers and I can not imagine using Debian and Ubuntu better than web servers! Enterprise Distros like RedHat have many tasks and market shares that you need to think.
3 • FreeBSD on USB (by mechanic on 2013-02-11 10:54:07 GMT from United Kingdom)
Jesse seemed to have a reasonable experience with FreeBSD, maybe that was using the files on the DVD rather than downloading more current ports/packages from the web? Staying with the 'RELEASE' level of software may be an easy option, running the 'STABLE' level is currently a nightmare. Identifying the site directory with the right software and setting PACKAGESITE appropriately is the first tricky step, even with a suitable value the chances of a trouble free install are slim. Compiling all additional packages (to the base system) seems the safest option although time consuming.
Woe betide anyone trying to install a BSD (Free- or Open-) onto an external USB disk, every attempt I've made at this resulted in a locked-up un-bootable machine, and that's with the default settings more or less everywhere. An installer that results in an unbootable machine when following default settings is, er, unacceptable in my view.
And the real problem with the BSDs is that they don't support Dropbox, and that installing Keepassx calls in massive numbers of KDE libraries!
4 • Arch Linux (by Mathew John Roberts on 2013-02-11 12:23:12 GMT from United Kingdom)
Another thing i've noticed from some arch users is that they expect pacman to do all the system maintenance for them. Please remind them that sometimes manual intervention is needed. Tell them to check the website regularly and pay extra attention to the output that pacman provides. At the end of the day Arch is for those who want to be in control of their system, which means they are the ones responsible for their system (pacman doesn't do it for them).
As a side note, anyone who uses AUR packages need to be extra careful.
Good work on your advice. Nice to see Arch get a mention.
5 • @4 (by SJOFA on 2013-02-11 12:31:33 GMT from United States)
I couldn't disagree more. You must be talking about Gentoo. Arch is nothing like that.
6 • FreeBSD Review (by Earlybird on 2013-02-11 12:39:17 GMT from Canada)
On the rare occasion that a block of free time becomes available and doesn't get used up by other responsibilities, have thought about tinkering with the BSD's. That was a really helpful review to get some idea of what might be involved. In addition to the on-line documentation from the the website (and it's many mirrors), I seem to recall an interesting book - AbsoluteBSD from No Starch Press, that may be worth checking out as well. Another one was FreeBSD Unleashed, but I don't know how current the last publication would be.
As for the Gnome news, don't know what's going on in their heads. Would be interesting to take some of their developers and get a PET scan of their brains. This is NOT meant as an insult. Just an attempt to understand their incomprehensible thought processes. Many of the Gnome apps are already horribly dumbbed down. Now they want to do everything in Javascript?!!? Aside from occasionally enabling it in a browser for some obstinate websites, I make sure NOT to use Java dependent apps. Much prefer to stick with C, Python, etc. And then there are languages that don't get adequate recognition such as Lua, Ocaml, etc. Would like to see this whole Oracle, Java, Javascript thing go down a black hole (singularity; not the "other" interpretation - can't be too carefull, whether it be programming or posting messages...)
And speaking of Gnome and single file installation, isn't there already an "app for that"? I believe that's what MagicErmine does, as well as Statifier.
Don't take me too seriously. It's early Monday morning, and seeing anything about Gnome and hearing a weather forecast about freezing rain moving in is enough to make me run back under the covers rather than head out the door. Only 28 days in Feb, and no Friday the 13th, so I may just survive the rest of this month.....
7 • FreeBSD,Fedora,Centos (by musty on 2013-02-11 13:10:26 GMT from France)
- Great review about FreeBsd. I 'm waiting for the portage of true ZFS to linux.
- many people complain tha Fedora 18 is the worst version: that is not true. there is problem with anaconda, but one installed it is a great and stable distro with a lot of new features i would like to find on debian and centos.
- In my work we use Centos for web hosting for our blog and wiki. But for critical missions we trust redhat enterprise 6.x and never have any problem. We simply canot live without ..
8 • simplicity (by twodogs on 2013-02-11 13:35:33 GMT from United States)
@4 I believe, sometimes, manual intervention is needed on any Linux distribution. But, why does a person have to go to a website and verify that it is safe to update their operating system? Do Arch users have to deal with broken packages frequently? I know Arch users like to control their computer and all, but isn't the Arch philosophy KISS?
I'm not trying to start a 'war.' I have used Arch before and to put it simply, it was a lot of work. I just prefer my OS to be simple. On the distro I use now, I rarely use a GUI or 'software manager' to get new software. I love using the terminal and sometimes even use a PPA or two.
At the end of the day, my computer runs like a champ and I have plenty of time to do other important things and not have to worry about my computer working correctly the next time I use it.
9 • Fedora (by Jesse on 2013-02-11 15:10:11 GMT from Canada)
I find it interesting that Mr Woods defends radically changing the Anaconda interface by pointing out the back-end needed to be upgraded. As though fixing the behind the scenes parts of the utility would require changing the design of the user interface. Changing one does not require changing the other. I agree the back-end of Anaconda was long overdue for a re-write, it's been lagging behind in recent years. However, there wasn't anything preventing them from using the old interface on top of the new design.
10 • Re:#8 simplicity (by silent on 2013-02-11 15:42:58 GMT from France)
So, you have found the best solution for yourself. Arch is the best solution for others. No broken packages in the official repos, good documentation. If you want something really simple, I have just installed Slacko Puppy from a ~150MB exe file on a USB key under Windows 2000 as a dual boot on an old machine and everything just works, latest skype and libreoffice can be added as SFS, and I was really impressed by the polished GUI based on jwm.
11 • PC-BSD rolling release authorship (by Scott H on 2013-02-11 15:55:26 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted. (For corrections please send us an email).
12 • Anaconda (by David Smith on 2013-02-11 16:10:12 GMT from Canada)
I'm not pleased with Anaconda's inflexible, "my way or the highway" handling of bootloader installation, in the case of adding Fedora 18 to a pre-existing, multiboot environment.
13 • Arch Linux (by cwwgateway on 2013-02-11 16:13:13 GMT from United States)
The "KISS" principle of Arch is very different from the "KISS" principles of other "user friendly" distros. Here are some quotes from the "Arch Way" page on their wiki:
From the simplicity section:
"Arch Linux defines simplicity as without unnecessary additions, modifications, or complications, and provides a lightweight UNIX-like base structure that allows an individual user to shape the system according to their own needs. In short: an elegant, minimalist approach."
From the user-centric section:
"Arch Linux targets and accommodates competent GNU/Linux users by giving them complete control and responsibility over the system."
Arch doesn't hold your hand - you are responsible for maintaining your system (responsibility is in italics on the wiki). Pacman follows the same principle. It isn't nearly as hardcore as gentoo, and it has OOTB dependency handling unlike slackware (which does have slapt-get). However, a package manager like apt will provide config files, run processes at startup, etc. Pacman will sometimes require you to do this by yourself.
Here's a quote from the pacman page on the arch wiki:
"Pacman is a powerful package management tool, but it does not attempt to handle all corner cases. Read The Arch Way if this causes confusion. Users must be vigilant and take responsibility for maintaining their own system."
Simplicity is a strength of Arch, and it allows and requires the user to control his/her own system.
As for the AUR, packages there are often not up to the quality standards of official Arch packages (which in turn often are not up to quality standards of Debian Stable or Red Hat). There are many great packages from the AUR, but, because the packages are user contributed, they won't always work great.
As for the W3Techs poll, I'm happy Debian is doing so well (I'm a Debian guy), although in my head I envision Debian and Red Hat/CentOS being on top. These two seem like the traditional stable server distros.
14 • Rebellin Review (by Lewis on 2013-02-11 16:18:51 GMT from United States)
I'm an avid reader of DW Weekly. Two issues back, Rebellin linux was mentioned. I find the distro to be quite interesting. But there are no reviews on the internet anywhere except for the comments in DW Weekly...
I wonder if DW can make a review. I'm commenting here cos I saw it's ad in DW's header!
15 • Arch comments (by musky_smell on 2013-02-11 16:39:53 GMT from United Kingdom)
Seems quite a few people never bothered to read up on what they were intending to use and misinterpreted what KISS principle means.
It does not mean you can fire up the package manager, update frequently and forget about anything else. Documentation is there for a reason. Wonder how they got all their services and daemons running that are usually needed for an acceptable desktop experience, laptop-tools etc.
16 • Arch comments (by bin on 2013-02-11 17:04:05 GMT from United Kingdom)
Having got myself a bit tangled up with Arch on a couple of occasions I was delighted with Manjaro Linux which is a packaged distro based on arch but with its own repositories. The supported DE is XFCE 4.10 bu there are MATE, KDE and Openbox - oh yes there's an E17 as well now.
You get a good selection of the normal software choices.
There is also a nice package browser tool - though that is all it does. Pacman is there to do the heavy lifting and AUR reps are there if needed. For some stuff there's no choice other than AUR - but so far I've not found anything broken. The kalu system monitor handles updates like a champ.
It is the only linux version I have ever discovered that correctly handles Dell's rather quaint sound cards in the Inspiron. The volume control does just that rather than fading back to front or just blowing your eardrums out and please don't talk about editing analogoutput.conf.common in 'buntus to make it work.
That alone makes it a winner for me! . After 3 months I'm still happy with it,. OK it is not going to appeal to everyone, but when you've got a bit fed up with your current distro, or just fancy something fast and fresh with an Arch flavour then it's worth a go.
17 • @14 Rebellin Review (by DavidEF on 2013-02-11 17:49:47 GMT from United States)
To each his own, but I'm not interested in Rebellin until there are at least two new developments:
1) A free download, at least trial period, to test and see if it will work on my hardware.
2) A compelling reason to try it. So far, I haven't seen anything to make me want to try it.
A review MAY bring something to light that would satisfy No. 2, but No. 1 still stands in the way. If there was never a question, never a missing driver, or codec, or application, and every linux distro could be expected to just work out of the (virtual) box, then it MIGHT be worth $5 to try it out. However, I don't buy lottery tickets, and I'm not about to buy an unknown distro, when there are plenty of options.
18 • Linux usage stats (by DavidEF on 2013-02-11 18:01:55 GMT from United States)
Seems to me, if it were possible to nail down exact usage numbers for linux, someone would cry "security breach!" Although it would be nice to have numbers to prove some point about linux usage growing, let's not forget that some of the benefits of open source software are also the main reasons we don't know who's using it! If we nailed down everybody who's using it, then everybody who's using it would be nailed down - duh! One of the advantages vs. proprietary software would then cease to exist. Think about it.
19 • Re: @6, javascript (by jimH on 2013-02-11 18:25:35 GMT from United States)
Other than the first four letters, a somewhat similar syntax and your disapprobrium, what does javascript have to do with Java or Oracle? It sure doesn't depend on Java to run.
20 • Linux, in all its forms (by Jesse on 2013-02-11 18:42:12 GMT from Canada)
>> "I find the distro to be quite interesting. But there are no reviews..."
Given that there isn't any trial version of Rebellin I suspect most reviewers (myself included) will shy away from it. The website doesn't mention any special features Rebellin supplies over its parent (Debian). Perhaps if the project develops unique features people will take a greater interest.
>> "Seems to me, if it were possible to nail down exact usage numbers for linux, someone would cry "security breach!" Although it would be nice to have numbers to prove some point about linux usage growing,let's not forget that some of the benefits of open source software are also the main reasons we don't know who's using it!"
That has never been one of the benefits of using open source systems. Your web browser identifies your OS. Also, anyone running a port scan against your machine will know what OS you are running based on how the system responds. Most web servers report their OS and web server names/versions too. There isn't anything about open source which makes users anonymous.
21 • PC-BSD vs FreeBSD (by Franz on 2013-02-11 18:49:15 GMT from United States)
More than rolling release should be that PC-BSD became independent OS. Waiting for one year for FreeBSD ports is a little too long. And you never know which apps are priority on FreeBSD: are exotic languages or Gnome for example?
They don't care what users want...
22 • Re: #9 Fedora (by Charles on 2013-02-11 19:05:51 GMT from United States)
I totally agree. Nobody was ever saying that Anaconda didn't need a re-write. Too bad Mr. Woods defense has so little to do with the actual criticism leveled against it: that the new version is ugly and difficult to use. Surely they could have come up with a better front end while still refreshing the back end.
23 • PCBSD-Graphics (by niX on 2013-02-11 19:29:19 GMT from United States)
I really like PC-BSD but it lacks proprietary Graphics Driver Support. That's why don't use it on my desktop, since it it needs proprietary driver so my audio can work. But I do run it on a VM.
24 • @20 usage numbers (by DavidEF on 2013-02-11 19:55:11 GMT from United States)
Jesse, sorry for the ambiguity. I only meant that linux usage is not intentionally tracked in any sure way. There is no centralized distribution center. There is source code everywhere. I can legally take a distribution cd and install it on a gazillion computers without telling anyone. There is no "phone home" mechanism in the kernel, and even if there were, it wouldn't count any linux machine that didn't have internet access. These are the things I'm talking about. The freedom to take linux and use it in any way imaginable makes the thought of accurate usage stats laughable at best. I agree anonymity is not automatic and shouldn't ever be taken for granted. But, the ABILITY to have a completely unknown, untracked installation of linux is definitely there, and not even hard to come by.
25 • @24 (by DavidEF on 2013-02-11 20:00:06 GMT from United States)
...of course, if we REALLY wanted to take the conversation to the bottom shelf, it could be argued that the ABILITY to have a completely unknown, untracked installation of almost ANY OS, is there. It's just that, with Linux, and other OSS, it is also LEGAL to do so.
26 • RE 24 (by dbrion on 2013-02-11 20:11:28 GMT from France)
Well, DavidEF, Caitlyn Martin had the idea of 'counting' the number of netbooks, laptops and phones (this is often forgotten) which are sold with GNUlinux or a derivative.
Though yearly sales are like a speed (and one is interested in a steady state number -a position-), this can be more serious than ineernet based countings (PC visting, say, a Debian depo might have different OS than PC visiting Microsoft 's depos)
27 • Anathema (by Woody Oaks on 2013-02-11 20:35:08 GMT from United States)
All of the requirements for Anaconda's replacement could easily have been met with an intelligible GUI, but Anathema's GUI is a silly, incomprehensible mess, and that is readily apparent to anyone who tries to use it. It seems, though, that the crowd responsible for it is choosing to ignore the obvious. This doesn't bode well for the Distribution. Any guesses as to which end of the Anaconda Anathema was extruded?
28 • Ubuntu and Gnome (by Koro on 2013-02-11 21:42:35 GMT from Belgium)
In conclusion:
1.- Canonical had (and still has) plenty of people testing their mobile interface (Unity) on their desktops (for free) so that the company could develop a mature product to be commercialised on smartphones. The funny thing is that they have persuaded all those guys that Unity was perfect for de desktop. No comments ;-)
2.- So Ubuntu's Dash is going to spy on you in 100 or more different ways. Just like Google (but less efficiently). Good to now XD
3.- Java? Are you kidding me? GNOME is over. First they implement a (ultra-heavy) mobile interface (Gnome Shell) maybe hoping that it would become Canonical's interface of choice for their mobile adventure. Then they drop support for the fall-back mode (in spite of the fact of being left behind by Canonical), also insisting that Gnome Shell was a perfect interface for the desktop as well XD Now they choose the worst programming language on Earth, probably aiming at portability...
Good bye and good luck to you all.
29 • RE: Ubuntu and Gnome (by Anonymous on 2013-02-11 23:54:30 GMT from Australia)
@28, who said anything about Java?
30 • FreeBSD (by Paraquat on 2013-02-12 01:34:55 GMT from Sweden)
I appreciate the review of FreeBSD. I used it years ago, and it was certainly "educational." However, that's another way of saying that I had to rack my brains just to do many things that should have been simple. I especially remember the joys of trying to create a firewall - spent days studying how to write firewall rules and never actually got it working, while in Linux simply installing package "ufw" and typing "sudo ufw enable" is all you have to do (if that's not done automatically by your installer, which it usually is). Perhaps this has changed, but I tried FreeBSD again last year and it seemed to be only slightly more user-friendly than when I used it a decade earlier. I admit though that I didn't spend a lot of time with the latest version.
Not that I want to fire barbs at the FreeBSD developers. They have done a lot of good work, and contributed much code which eventually found its way into Linux. I warmly thank them for their efforts. I'm not sure if Apple or Microsoft ever bothered to say "thank you" for all the code they lifted from FreeBSD - all the BSD license requires is that you give attribution somewhere. But the BSD license at least does allow for full support of ZFS, something that Linux hasn't been able to (legally) do because of licensing issues.
So thumbs up to the FreeBSD developers. However, as a user, one has to be a very committed geek to run any of the BSDs. It's not something that everyone has time to devote to.
peace,
P.
31 • @ 6 (by Anonymous Coward on 2013-02-12 02:41:46 GMT from United States)
"As for the Gnome news, don't know what's going on in their heads. Would be interesting to take some of their developers and get a PET scan of their brains."
Without a doubt the funniest comment ever on distrowatch.
Only one possible problem though. Evidence suggests all of the devs have had their brains removed.
32 • statistics (by :wq on 2013-02-12 03:01:59 GMT from United States)
This is tangential to the W3Techs story, but in addition to AWStats data, does DistroWatch.com track which issues receive the most comments, or, more specifically, what stories generate the most response?
33 • Javascript != Java (by greenpossum on 2013-02-12 03:41:52 GMT from Australia)
Anybody who is under the misapprehension that they are the same thing doesn't know programming languages.
34 • @9 @22 (by Adam Williamson on 2013-02-12 03:49:27 GMT from Canada)
Read the whole of Will's post, not just the extract printed here. It's several pages long, a single paragraph extract is just a sample. Also, @22, I'm glad to hear UI design is so simple: why don't you read the three years of notes from our UI designer at http://blog.linuxgrrl.com/category/fedora/anaconda/ and send in your design which meets all the requirements discussed there, for all our various use cases and types of user, and then implement it to your satisfaction in its first public release? I'll be awaiting your results with interest!
35 • @27 (by Adam Williamson on 2013-02-12 03:58:00 GMT from Canada)
Well, gee, a great way to ensure people who write software want to take your feedback on board when they look for ways to improve it is to suggest that they are silly and prone to ignoring and/or missing the blatantly obvious, and that they like to discharge software through orifices typically reserved for waste products. I've got an idea: how's about you do your job entirely in public, and if I don't like it, instead of trying to provide reasonable and constructive feedback, I'll come and piss over all your hard work? Does that sound like something you'd enjoy?
36 • @Adam (by Anonymous Coward on 2013-02-12 04:38:35 GMT from United States)
Hey, Fedora user here.....
The new installer isn't all that bad, so I really don't know what all the crying is about. It's already gotten better, which will of course continue. No worries.
P.S. - I love being ripped to shreds in public. I'll submit some of my work soon.
37 • Hydration (by Woody Oaks on 2013-02-12 04:42:18 GMT from United States)
I hope you get plenty of it, Adam, because you've got an Internet-full of dissatisfaction to hose down.
38 • @36 (by Adam Williamson on 2013-02-12 05:01:45 GMT from Canada)
Heh, thanks. It's not that I mind people criticising the new UI, that's fine. It's 'instant expert syndrome' that I find annoying - I don't actually work on anaconda, but I know the people who *do* work on it are very smart people who've been working way harder than required on it for a long time. I just find it a) ludicrous and b) irritating when people figure that showing up on the internet and reading two stories makes them an expert on everything. Not unique to newUI, of course - you see it everywhere. Apparently, we don't need a team of expert coders and a professional UI designer when we could just ask some random jackwagon on the internet and he'd tell us our design was obviously silly! Gee, that makes life much easier.
39 • @38 (by Somewhat Reticent on 2013-02-12 07:44:41 GMT from United States)
How many trials did any of those hard-working expert coders or that professional UI designer conduct with neophytes?
40 • @23/PC-BSD graphics (by mz on 2013-02-12 07:49:44 GMT from United States)
I've actually seen a great improvement in the most recent PC-BSD release in terms of graphics support. That isn't to say it works well; however, the new one actually did work on my main machine after many failed attempts to boot a live CD since the 7.x versions of PC-BSD. The old versions used to always produce a strange annoying flickering at me when the desktop loaded, while the new versions goes into some kind of fallback mode. I still can't get into KDE from a live USB session, but LXDE actually comes up & gives me a usable desktop. If anyone has had trouble with PC-BSD graphics in the past & just gave up during the live session now might be the time to give it another try. It may not be perfect, but they have made progress. I'm now confident that I'll install PC-BSD on some machine of mine in the future when I get the urge & have the time.
41 • @17 Distrowatch and Rebellin (by Lewis on 2013-02-12 09:27:14 GMT from United States)
Dave you're right. Personally, I don't mind spending $5 cos it's not much. But I need to know how good is the distro. Asking money for a distro is crazy.
Why do I love Distrowatch? Cos it's one-stop-'shop' for all-things-linux. So my point is, if it was added to Distrowatch, they definitely have it's ISO. Cos that's where they got it's package list. So they can review this 'strange' distro. If it's a bad product, it'll get bad review. But what if it's good? And something about this distro, which is difficult to obtain, would be helpful! Reviewing the regular ones is fine, but it's this crazy one I wanna know about!
42 • @41 - Try before you buy, or pay to play (by Fossilizing Dinosaur on 2013-02-12 09:35:42 GMT from United States)
If you want someone to preview this for you, simply sponsor the iso.
The only 'crazy' about this is making money off curiosity. Like a fox?
Aren't some cars sold to people who just 'have to have', for big $$? Then trade-in for ¢¢ ...
43 • Linpus Linux (by customized HTML5 widget on 2013-02-12 09:36:15 GMT from India)
Addition of customized HTML5 widget is a good way to going towards cloud, hoping son tons of html5 apps in linpus armor.
44 • 19) re java javascript (by Earlybird on 2013-02-12 09:39:18 GMT from Canada)
19) re java and javascript: Guess I am guilty of confusing the two in my rant. My objection to Java (stand-alone programming language from Sun) was simply that I'd prefer to see more emphasis on languages such as Python, and others that don't get enough recognition (using Lua and Ocaml as examples). Then with Javascript (I think originally from Netscape?), I have enough security issues with that running in a web browser. So when I saw that Gnome developers want THAT as the default programming language for a desktop, alarm bells started going off in my head.
I am more a "hardware" person than a programmer (think power supplies, instrumentation, robotics, etc.). All my colleagues these days seem to going more to Python, not Java. So yes, they (Java and Javascript) are 2 different animals, and at 3AM, I am not going to feel guilty about not wanting to see anything starting with a capital J (or in the case of Gnome, a "G").
I would think most readers here know the difference. Sorry if I caused you any confusion. So think positive (starting with a "P") and remember: Pyyyyyython, Peeet scan, you are getting sleeepy, remember I am always riiiight (even when I'm wrong) (well, if on-line hypnosis works, that only proves the dangers of scripting; imagine I'd succeeded in reprogramming your brain!) Now please excuse me while I waddle off-stage (penguin-style) and write an ode to scripting induced brain damage......(self-inflicted or otherwise)
45 • BSD has now the full support of inxi (by arno911 on 2013-02-12 10:03:25 GMT from Germany)
h2 has been working on this for the last few days: http://techpatterns.com/forums/about2249.html
now inxi can be used in Linux and BSD :-)
46 • RE 39 : Is linux installation (not use, installation) meant for neophytes? (by dbrion on 2013-02-12 10:13:55 GMT from France)
"How many trials did any of those hard-working expert coders" (i.e. Fedora anaconda developpers) " or that professional UI designer conduct with neophytes?"
Well , some GNUlinux installations are far easier than windows.... but, anyways, a vast majority of people prefer to buy/get preinstalled OSes (for "smart" "phones", laptops ...).
May be the Fedora professional UI designer is very wise and kind not to make any trials with neophytes, thus leading to faster developpment times (and sometimes faster criticisms by non neophytes).....
47 • @40 • @23/PC-BSD graphics (by Franz on 2013-02-12 11:21:23 GMT from United States)
Problem in FreeBSD and PC-BSD world is support for graphics. In the Linux world is not so brilliant but in the BSD world is much worse. And this is the biggest problem.
I am user of FreeBSD about five years and support for my ATI Radeon is all five years the same: BAD and the future is the same. Maybe will PC-BSD change something.
48 • #38 Fedora installer (by silent on 2013-02-12 12:17:31 GMT from France)
So, apparently some people are fed up with the new Fedora installer, but I used fedup to upgrade to 18, so I haven't even seen the new design. It is not nice when users publicly insult the team of developers, but the really pointless thing is when it goes the other way around.
49 • Rebellin (by Ada on 2013-02-12 14:34:17 GMT from Italy)
Me too am a reader of DW. I chosed Rebellin Adrenaline (Debian SID) and installed it on my PC where I have also XP-PCLinoxOS and AntiX. All hardware, printer,scanner,wifi recognized out of the box, adjusted post-installation as per First Run tutorial and now I have a system working very well and I'm more than satisfied. Hands-up who has installed whatever distro without encountering any problem requiring help through the web.
Why not a free distro?Asking money is crazy?You folks do not buy unknown distro when there are plenty of options nor do you buy lottery tickets?Well, it's up to you, it's your choice, you are not compelled to buy. Have you looked at the developer team? NO ?
THERE AINT'T NO TEAM...IT'S JUST HIM ! a 24 years old computer engineers who lives in India. There are no corporations nor millionaires behind him. Something to fix? No problem, just e-mail and matter of hours (or even at-once depending on time lag) the solution will arrive, directly from him. You don't have to browse the many forums and wait that another find the solution to your problem. He is the developer and will fix it for you.
The distro is not strange nor difficult to obtain, bad or good the only way to know is to sponsor the ISO. There is nothing crazy and he is not making money.
50 • @48 Don't know about the new Anaconda but... (by DavidEF on 2013-02-12 14:35:42 GMT from United States)
Post #38 is right on. Some people need it spelled out for them. I'm also tired of all the 'instant expert syndrome' I see. I get it that people don't like some things. There are things I don't like in FOSS as well. But, there are more constructive ways of voicing opinions than just base level bashing. And then, there's the simple and easy method - just don't use it.
51 • #26/24: Linux numbers (by Caitlyn Martin on 2013-02-12 15:32:28 GMT from United States)
It's pretty much impossible to nail down Linux penetration in terms of actual numbers of individuals or businesses using Linux. There just is no accurate way to count. The article dbrion is referring to was debunking the 1% or 2% market share myth. I did that by pointing out that back in 2009-2010 (when the article was written) we did have solid numbers on netbook sales as well as solid numbers in terms of what percentage of the total market netbooks represented at the time. That made it clear that Linux couldn't possibly be anything less than 6% of sales at that time. It still didn't nail down a number. It just proved that 2% was nonsense.
The counter argument from those who insisted that 2% or less was correct is always to point to web counters. That never is a convincing argument. Where I work we have a very significant SUSE Linux desktop deployment. Most of those users only have intranet access, not internet. They can't ever be counted. That is very common in business and government installations.
One very recent number we do have: Forrester Research has Linux at 9% of the corporate/enterprise desktop in terms of sales of preloaded machines in 2012.
Finally, what is the desktop nowadays anyway? Do we count tablets? Smartbooks? Is Android counted as Linux or separately? What about ChromeOS? The bottom line is that you can pretty much spin numbers that are out there to suit any agenda you may have.
One thing I am sure of: Linux is everywhere and the traditional desktop is a much smaller piece of the market than it used to be.
52 • Fedora Installer (by Jose Mirles on 2013-02-12 18:11:45 GMT from United States)
I just tried Fedora and really don't see the problem. It is "different" but not difficult. Slackware's installer is different but not difficult and it causes uproars as well. i guess people just like what they know and hate to try something new.
I suggest before you complain about Fedora's installer or anything about Fedora, you look at their webpage and their Wiki. They clearly state, it is for the Tech Savvy and for those that like to tinker. If you aren't in that class, then try one of the many other distros listed here.
i mean, there are a TON of distros listed. One of them is sure to be that "perfect" one for you.
Adam, you know how folks like to rile you and Caitlyn. They were doing this to you in the Mandriva (I hate that name, Mandrake sounded so much better!) forums and now here. You do good work. We know it. You know it. That should be enough.
I am happy Fedora is out there trying new things so linux will not get stale.
53 • @39 (by Adam Williamson on 2013-02-12 20:14:26 GMT from Canada)
We're doing formal usability testing on newUI this month - it wasn't practical to set it up within the F18 timeframe. It'll work out better this way anyway, as we're doing the testing on the already-improved newUI that's in development for F19, based on the feedback we already got from F18.
54 • distro for eeePC? (by gnomic on 2013-02-12 21:06:50 GMT from New Zealand)
Anyone got any thoughts on a good distro for an eeePC, 2010 model with the 1024x600 screen? There was a phase when distros were adapting their desktops specially for this screen resolution but that seems to have died away now.
55 • @52 Fedora Installer (by PCBSDuser on 2013-02-12 22:00:05 GMT from Canada)
I don't have a horse in this race, but I think you might want to take a look at that Wiki again. They do indeed state that "Our community is made up of people, by and large, who are very tech savvy."
However, they go on to say "However, our user base does not necessarily share this level of expertise. We do not assume Fedora users are skilled developers or hackers, although certainly some are." And they conclude: "We assume the software we send to users has no context to them other than they may use it."
In sum, they hope the user will become a collaborator and a member of the community, but they don't count on it or require it for the user to enjoy and profit from the Fedora experience.
56 • @54 (by mz on 2013-02-12 22:41:09 GMT from United States)
Why not just adjust your desktop settings to your liking after installing something that meets your general needs? You can certainly scale up or down buttons, fonts, title bars, panels, etc. in KDE.
57 • @55 (by Adam Williamson on 2013-02-12 23:39:52 GMT from Canada)
That is a correct reading, and indeed, a lot of the design of the new anaconda UI is intended to make it more accessible to less knowledgeable users, without compromising advanced use cases. This is very difficult to achieve, especially in the area of storage configuration.
58 • distro counting (by rocket_robin_hood on 2013-02-13 02:36:57 GMT from Canada)
Unfortunately, most modern distro's dont identify themselves in the user agent strings anymore, so when you look at the statistics the numbers for ubuntu and unknown linux are huge. Ubuntu's large numbers are not accurate tho as I have seen other distro's such as linux mint identify themselves as ubuntu, because the firefox package is ubuntu's and was not changed to identify itself as mint.
Fedora 18 does not identify itself; arch, slackware, and gentoo never have. Debian squeeze, wheezy, and sid dont either. My prediction for these statistics in the future is that ubuntu will continue to rocket up, while the other popular distro's will dissapear from the statistics, and unknown linux distros may become far more popular than ubuntu even. xD
59 • Defensive protestings of criticism for Fedora's Anaconda beta (by Not Reticent Enough? on 2013-02-13 06:44:01 GMT from United States)
So our favorite self-appointed betaOS fanboi may finally settle down; even adopt a professional attitude?
Baiting was so easy. What faux pas will trolls carp about next? What teapot tempest will attract readers?
Hope springs infernal ... don't lick the ice.
60 • @49 Rebellin (by ACon on 2013-02-13 08:06:01 GMT from Italy)
Would you mind to fill in a complete review and make it available on the web?
It seems to me that will be the only way to have some more info about it.
cheers
61 • Rebellin [@14/41/60] (by Fossilizing Dinosaur on 2013-02-13 10:49:58 GMT from United States)
ACon - see comment #49 - why don't you ask Ada (also from Italy) to share?
62 • @54 - Distro recommendations (by Uncle Slacky on 2013-02-13 10:54:33 GMT from France)
Bodhi looks good on my 701 4G (800x480 screen) and runs quickly, too (even with compositing enabled).
63 • @54 distro for eeePC? (by Alex on 2013-02-13 13:42:11 GMT from United States)
I am using Fuduntu and Peppermint OS on my 10.1 inch netbooks. They both work well.
64 • The world's a much better place because of..... (by Landor on 2013-02-13 17:00:21 GMT from Canada)
Last week was horrible because of the Red Hat Propaganda Machine being let loose here in DistroWatch Weekly. Now we have it all over again. It's insane.
A number of points to remember. (some of which I've discussed here numerous times but the sheeple here just don't get it)
The majority are up in arms about GNOME (which forces Ubuntu to make the changes) and they knock the who user interface down in anger. Well, let me tell you, Red Hat OWNS GNOME. Not really, but they might as well. They have the most official, and unofficial developers working on the project full and part-time. They've been funding almost since its inception. You want to boycott GNOME, Ubuntu, and the Shell? Start by refusing to use any Red Hat product, including Fedora, and then get the message out.
Next, it's also noted that out of all the distributions in all of the Linux Landscape, the only one that consistently tells you that you aren't reviewing or understanding it right is Fedora. Look around at past reviews that were negative all over the internet, you'll find some Red Hat employee (being paid to) telling the world it's wrong, and why.
Now we have one of their public relations people or some crap, but they're all supposed to be, basically saying that anyone with a negative opinion that doesn't fit with their agenda and view is an idiot and doesn't have a right to an opinion.
I've been known to say that people who didn't try to change GNOME prior and only care now shouldn't say a word, but this is different. This is an installer that's built for a Red Hat Agenda. It's meant to power their 'product'. People don't have a say in the development. Not to any meaningful extent anyway. Red Hat wants 'X' and they get 'X'. Oh sure, there might be some minor changes based on input, but there's really no give at all. The same way there was no give once Red Hat start to steamroll GNOME 3 out the door.
People always complain about the bootloader too. It has never been multi-installation friendly to my knowledge. They only care about their products. They want you only using their builds. It's logical. Why not employ as many free testers, developers, bug reporters, ambassadors, and a whole lot more, as they can. It's exactly why they keep the product life of any release so short.
Lastly, the majority of bugs reported in any given release are never fixed. They don't need to. They're only concerned with the Red Hat agenda. If it is a problem for a future Red Hat release, or fits with their overall plans, they fix it. If it doesn't, it gets completely ignored. Dollars matter, not you.
I have no idea why anyone would want to be a part of something so one-sided.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Lansdor
65 • @28,@6 - Java != Javascript (by Sporkman on 2013-02-13 18:28:47 GMT from United States)
Completely different languages.
As an aside, I hear that the Firefox smartphone OS is very javascript-centric.
66 • #64: The FOSS world IS a much better place because of Red Hat (by Caitlyn Martin on 2013-02-13 18:32:18 GMT from United States)
Red Hat propaganda machine? Oh, puh-leeze. Boycott the #1 contributor to the kernel? Boycott the #1 employer of FOSS developers? Boycott the company that buys proprietary software and opens it and gives it to the community? I'd rather boycott some hysterical comments on DWW, thankyouverymuch.
The GRUB bootloader is not multi-install friendly? Since when? That isn't true for anyone who knows what they are doing. GNOME 3 has proven to be very extensible and configurable and... Guess what? I'm running into more and more people who really like it now that it's maturing nicely.
Oh, and FWIW, I make my money supporting SUSE nowadays, so I have no vested interest in Red Hat at all.
One sided? The comment is, sure. Please put your shtick on ice.
67 • evil companies (by ix on 2013-02-13 19:48:33 GMT from United Kingdom)
Call me paranoid, but companies are evil. They are more interested in profits than in anything else and that's normal. So, yeah, this includes Red Hat, Canonical and every other company. As much as I like Google products, Google is probably evil too.
I may be paranoid, but I'm using a community distro.
68 • @67 (by Adam Williamson on 2013-02-13 20:21:42 GMT from Canada)
The problem with that world view is that it's entirely impractical. You can't get through two hours without relying on _something_ from a company. (Well, maybe in Cuba or North Korea, I dunno). My power comes from a company, so does my water. Your community distro is all well and good, but it's running a kernel that's to a large extent developed by company employees, and a whole bunch of software that is too.
'Companies are evil' is a judgement you can make, but I mean, what are you going to do with it, in practical terms? It doesn't seem like a philosophy that you can actually do much with. Practically speaking, given the world we live in, it seems pretty much a given that you're going to have to try and decide which companies are less evil than others...
69 • Agendas and boycotts. (by Antony on 2013-02-13 20:53:14 GMT from United Kingdom)
Caitlyn, unfortunately your reasoning and logic will not make the slightest difference as far as he is concerned. He will just reach into his inexhaustible sack of 'truths', as ever - and, hey presto, you will have been 'shown' to have no knowledge, experience or integrity. Voila!
I just can't get over the 'pot-kettle-black' situation here - it is simply astounding! He goes on and on, infinitum, having a pop at people for their lack of morality, knowledge, intelligence, and tolerance. He also bangs on about agendas and infringements of freedoms and rights at any opportunity.
He complains about the standard of DWW articles, is not shy in proclaiming his contempt for DWW staff and contributors...............
He likes to think that I never comment here, unless to have a go at him. Well, that is easily provable to be wrong. I have been visiting DWW on a regular basis for several years now, and I admit that I do not post that many comments, but his 'truth' is that I ever comment in order to have a crack at him.
Strewth, I would far and away prefer to just be able to digest the information and contributions here without all this unpleasant and unnecessary interference - that is actually all I want (please).
I don't know if this will see the light of day, but I am getting fed up with this: fair enough, each person has a right of opinion - but this is something other, and to me at least, completely unacceptable.
70 • @64 (by Adam Williamson on 2013-02-13 23:08:22 GMT from Canada)
Jeez, Landor, would you wipe the spittle off your chin and keep a tight hold on the facts?
One: I'm not a PR person. If I was, I should be fired immediately, because I'd be a bloody terrible one. Lesson #1 in PR is never to say anything mean to anyone, after all, and I failed that decades ago. :)
I am officially the community manager for the RH Fedora QA team - my job description involves making it easier for people to contribute to Fedora QA. In practice, these days, I basically run the RH Fedora QA team. Just to make that clear.
Posting here is not part of my job, and I'm not being paid for it. I've been doing it since before I worked for Red Hat; I've been posting here since before I worked for Mandriva, even. I read DWW and comment on it because, like you, I'm an asshole on the internet with an opinion. If you Google carefully enough you will find my opinions on Fedora, but also on fedoras, on Buzz Ricksons reproduction military flight jackets, on the news in Canada and the UK, on xkcd, The Verge, and on all sorts of other stuff. Like I said: I'm a guy on the internet with an opinion. Naturally, a lot of my opinions involve the stuff I'm paid to work on, but that seems reasonable. It's not like it's off topic, or like anyone doesn't know who I am and who I work for.
You have a really bizarre and paranoid mindset, quite frankly. I don't have time to sit here and pick your entire comment apart, but here's some...
"Now we have one of their public relations people or some crap, but they're all supposed to be, basically saying that anyone with a negative opinion that doesn't fit with their agenda and view is an idiot and doesn't have a right to an opinion."
Well, no. I don't mind anyone having a negative opinion. What I mind is people saying stuff like "Anathema's GUI is a silly, incomprehensible mess, and that is readily apparent to anyone who tries to use it. It seems, though, that the crowd responsible for it is choosing to ignore the obvious...Any guesses as to which end of the Anaconda Anathema was extruded?"
That's not called 'having an opinion', that's called 'being entirely unnecessarily rude'. Look: take the comment at face value, and it is suggesting that a dozen or so smart people would work on a product for two years, and then - for some entirely unexplained reason - notice that it was a 'silly, incomprehensible mess', but 'choos[e] to ignore the obvious'. It's absurd. It's ridiculous. Why would anyone do that? I suppose it shouldn't bug me as much as it does, but I'm just wired that way. It irks me when people engage their mouth without engaging their brain and reading back what they wrote to see if it _makes any damn sense at all_. Another attribute not widely desired in PR people, btw ;)
It's also massively hubristic: the commenter is abrogating to himself the ability to run an OS installer - a massively complex piece of code which has several thousand use cases to try and somehow fulfill - and declare that it's 'obvious[ly]' 'a silly, incomprehensible mess'. That's what I referred to as 'instant expert syndrome' - it's the same thing that happens when someone reads a CNN story on some complex criminal case and declares 'well, the guy's obviously guilty, any fool could see that!' Well golly gee, we should just tear down the whole criminal justice system, right? We can just ask some internet commenter to tell us all what to do! Same deal. If the comment had been a reasoned critique of the new anaconda design, that would be different. Something worth engaging with. Maybe we'd get some useful feedback out of it. Maybe I'd be able to point out why something the guy thinks is 'silly' is the way it is. But no. It's just a blanket declaration and then some insults. What's the value of that to anyone?
Ask dedoimedo how I respond to comment which is (harshly) critical but at least rooted in reality and practical detail. Ask J.A. Watson. I don't mind criticism at all. What I _do_ mind is _rank idiocy_.
"People always complain about the bootloader too. It has never been multi-installation friendly to my knowledge."
What a surprise - your knowledge is faulty. Both old anaconda and new anaconda are pretty flexible in bootloader config terms, compared to most OSes. newUI slightly less so. But we still make a better effort than many. I've seen quite a lot of installers which don't give you any options for bootloader at all. It just gets stuck in the MBR of the partition with / or /boot on it. That's it, that's all you get. oldUI allowed you to install to any MBR, or to the header of your / or /boot partition, or not to install a bootloader. newUI allows you to install to any MBR or not to install a bootloader, but loses the 'install to a partition header' option. If you really, really, really want to install grub2 to a partition header - which is discouraged by upstream grub developers, and not actually necessary for multibooting, it's just one technique for multibooting - you can do it yourself. This is still more flexibility than many OS installers give you. The oldUI probably had more flexibility for bootloader installation than any OS I've seen.
I'm not actually criticizing OSes or distros that restrict the choices here, though, because that's a perfectly valid approach too: the reason being that bootloader configuration on BIOS PCs is a terrible terrible thing and no answer to it is a good one. It's just a fundamentally stupid mechanism. The more options you give the user at install time, the greater a chance you have of breaking something, and the more bullets you're putting in the gun for the user to point at their own foot. Most people don't really understand how bootloading works on PCs at all, but the few who do have come up with so many ridiculous bootloader schemes that any installer which tries to cope smartly with any possible bootloader configuration is pretty much on a hiding to nothing. Every time I dive into that rabbit hole I come up with a headache and a deep desire for everyone to move to UEFI already.
I'm tired of your blinkered attacks on RH and just not going to engage with them any more. What RH does is virtually entirely on the public record. You are free to make your bizarre and twisted judgements from that. Everyone else is free to make their judgements too, and yours seems pretty far out of the mainstream.
71 • Fedora (by corneliu on 2013-02-14 00:47:00 GMT from Canada)
I just finished reading comment #70 and I think we have a record here.
I installed Fedora 18 and I only have two issues with the new installer:
1. It doesn't allow me to partition the way I want. I want fixed partitions - 10GB for /root and the rest for /home. I don't want flexible partitions, Logical Volume crap and all that. I want my partitions the old fashioned way. When I created the root partition (10GB) all was good, then when I created the home partition, the size of the home partition was overwritten with the size of the root partition. And when I df I get both partitions like they share the same space. Maybe there is a way and I don't see it, but I've been using Linux for almost 8 years now, I guess I should know how to partition. Is this a bug or a "feature"? I used an SSD and I don't remember if btrfs was forced on me or not because I actually wanted to use btrfs.
2. Because of this installer Fedora was delayed way too much. I really hope Fedora 19 won't be delayed because of the installer again.
72 • OMG! (by Hardly Reticent on 2013-02-14 00:47:08 GMT from United States)
I hereby officially apologize for my momentary impulse of snarkiness.
The moment was exceedingly pregnant; I gave in to temptation's urge, for it pressed hard.
And it burst forth a great plenty, as ever-darker pots spewed ever-growing gouts of FUD.
O the howlings, as light burned into the blackness! The screams! Each iteration generating more and longer trollings, as fears of revelation ran amok, passing into blazing beams in confusion, and beyond.
While, more often than not, proving the opposition's point(s) ... ooo!
73 • correction #71 (by corneliu on 2013-02-14 00:49:54 GMT from Canada)
"the size of the home partition was overwritten with the size of the root partition"
should read
"the size of the root partition was overwritten with the size of the home partition"
Basically no matter the order, the second partition was giving its size value to the first partition.
74 • Anaconder whats up (by mandog on 2013-02-14 01:13:58 GMT from Peru)
So fedora brings out a new installer.
Now people are insulting everybody and drawing sides, Its simple if you don't like the fedora installer don't use fedora. Don't go insulting the design team, Design one better and contribute it so we all can benefit from it. The same with Gnome shell the tools to make your own shell are readily available.
Caitlyn Martin. Adam Williamson. Probably have more knowledge than the whole DWW audience put together. This whole attitude that has spurned over the last few years has brought respect down to gutter level
My stick is not on ice thank you very much
75 • Fedora installer - it's just not that hard (by Anonymous Coward on 2013-02-14 02:01:25 GMT from United States)
If you can't figure out how to set up your partitions with the new Fedora installer, it's more likely due to the limitations of your brain than with the installer.
76 • Nothing like mutual disrespect (by Fossilizing Dinosaur on 2013-02-14 02:14:28 GMT from United States)
Yes, all those whining freeloading moochers ought to show a lot more gratitude for the privilege of beta testing our latest Features First! Lazy Luddites! Had to waste valuable time redesigning menus just to shoehorn 'em into testing what's currently important. Might take cattle prods next ... hmm.
Some experts don't belong in marketing or advocacy ... QA, maybe.
77 • re 75 (by corneliu on 2013-02-14 03:05:55 GMT from Canada)
Anonymous Coward, why are you telling me this, aren't you smart enough to realize that I can't grasp the meaning of your extremely insightful post? If you managed to partition the drive the way I wanted to, why don't you share the achievements of your amazingly smart brain?
78 • Anaconda Installer (by bobarino on 2013-02-14 03:08:08 GMT from Kuwait)
A multi boot with Fedora NEVER works. That's why I stopped installing Fedora as my primary OS. Now I use Mint for my primary OS, then run Fedora/Red Hat/CentOS versions only in a VirtualBox environment for testing.
79 • re 78 (by corneliu on 2013-02-14 03:29:56 GMT from Canada)
In my case the multi boot always worked and I doubt that your experience with Fedora is the norm. It is much more likely that the multi boot works for most people.
80 • Anaconda Installer (by Bill on 2013-02-14 04:27:41 GMT from United States)
After reading about all the fuss I decided to have a look at the new and shiny Fedora w/Anaconda Installer. It was a bit "different" that's for sure, but it wasn't hard to follow. (I think it would be for newbies though). Anyways, the only problem I had was installing the bootloader. But when I finished I really liked the Fedora Grub menu, very nice! And it showed all 8 (eight) of my Operating Systems installed.
The other day I tried Mageia in Virtualbox and liked it, so I tried to install it on my HD. Unlike Fedora, it DID NOT recognize my other 7 OS's, and I just wasn't in the mood to edit the menu list. So Fedora beats Mageia as far as recognizing other OS's for me. YMMV
As far as sticks go, it must be tough being all alone way up there.
Thanks folks.
81 • @80--Mageia (by TonyA on 2013-02-14 04:54:32 GMT from Thailand)
Bill
3 Weeks ago I installed Mageia2 on sda6
It picked up the OSes on sda5, sda7 and sda8
Just FYI
82 • Are multiboot options pertinent? (by dbrion on 2013-02-14 07:26:36 GMT from France)
If you want to choose between two -or more- linuxes, it means
* noone of them is satisfying . Dissatisfaction grows with the number of installed -and never used- ones.
* you have no time to learn how to use some applications (as they were meant to be used, and there are sometimes newer things than Grub/lilo end a shiny new unpleasant installer, you miss , as your time is not infinite, essential things....
(and one can install, if one wants to distro(s)hopp, on external disks/sticks -works with FC, Mageia and I bet many more- and BIOS can have a priority with USB...
83 • On agendas (by Koro on 2013-02-14 10:08:26 GMT from Belgium)
Where I come from, we have a say: "Witches do not exist, but there are plenty of them". I guess pretty much the same with agendas.
I have nothing against Red Had or Canonical. On the contrary, even if I do not use their products because they do not suit my needs, I am grateful to them for all the work they are doing together with the community. Well, that mostly goes for RH, concerning Canonical I do not see so many benefits coming from their existence, but, anyway, let's admit there may be some.
The fact is that there is nothing paranoid those agendas may be more beneficial for the community than others. Some can even be rather inconvenient. I think that it is good that the community is fully aware of what is going on.
84 • Fedora 18 (by pfb on 2013-02-14 13:16:44 GMT from United States)
The problem with Fedora 18 is Fedora 17. 17 was very close to prefect. 18 has some rough edges. I used gparted to create partitions to get past the installer confusion and prevent LVM. But other than that the installer worked fine.
Wine, on the other hand has a rather peculiar action. I have dual monitors. Only wine config works on both. Other wine applications will display on both, but only respond to inputs on one. Weird! I just installed Opensuse 12.3 RC1, which has a newer version of wine, and it works just fine. (In fact opensuse 12.3 is looking as good or better than F17, just about perfect.)
The other strange happening in F18 is that Kstars causes a logout whenever I try to use my mouse. It is basically unusable.
The third thing is that Klickey has this annoying habit of occasionally ratcheting pulse audio up to full volume. Although that may be a good thing, in that, maybe I will kick my addiction to this mindless game.
I have Fedora 18 (64b version) running on an AMD64. So maybe the Wine problem is with Wine, rather than Fedora. It is not a fatal flaw, but it is damned irritating. Has anyone else seen this?
85 • openSUSE (by Barnabyh on 2013-02-14 14:05:21 GMT from United Kingdom)
I'm gonna break convention this week and talk about something else, namely openSUSE 12.3 which is imminent in 27 days from today. Call me schizophrenic, but although it never really worked well for me I'm excited to test SUSE again when the final is released.
12.2 was widely slated to be near perfect as well and broke completely at the first update, largely due to KDE. Package management has always felt cumbersome.
Similarly, ROSA Marathon release live CD install almost doubled in size at the first update, so much unwanted and unneeded stuff got pulled in without fiddling around with the preferences and dependency settings. Goes to show that the live CD was artificially trimmed down but as it all worked how could the packages not present at the time be considered dependencies?
In general RPM based distros are just not a good fit for me and I end up using a Debian distro if I want easy or Slackware again when more time is at hand. Nevertheless, excited to try out openSUSE again when it's out, maybe this time finally after eight years it will work for me - fingers crossed.
Why do I bother when you pretty much know what you like? General interest I suppose, to keep the finger on the pulse.
86 • @82 Are multiboot options pertinent (by mandog on 2013-02-14 14:37:01 GMT from Peru)
What you are saying is correct, I personally have 1 distro that I run permanent that is Arch for 6 years one install. and 1 partition that I uses occasionally use for testing which I test for a month or more at the moment its manjaro.
87 • @54 distro for eeePC? (by Marco on 2013-02-14 16:00:29 GMT from United States)
Kubuntu automagically gives me the netbook interface on my 1024x600 Acer Aspire One. Lowfat settings if you like:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1889034
88 • Comments (by Patrick on 2013-02-14 16:32:13 GMT from United States)
This week the comments section must have reached a new low. I have not been reading it consistently lately, so maybe I missed some previous lower point, but this sure seems hard to beat. Maybe I should just stop reading it altogether, since the continuous thoughtless and inane nonsense just makes me sick.
If you start whining about Java when Javascript is mentioned, go educate yourself.
In general, if you feel the need to throw a fit about something you don't have a clue about, remember the Mark Twain line prominently displayed by the comments box. It is there for a reason.
If you feel a compulsion to attack GNOME every single week, you need to go see a shrink.
If you think there is something sinister going on when someone develops an installer for THEIR own product, and dares to make it the way THEY want it to be, and you feel the need to make that sound evil by calling it an "agenda", an asylum might be the best place for you.
If you think you are being forced to beta test some evil company's product whenever they happen to release a new distro, you need to get your obsessive/compulsive disorder treated.
If you derive pleasure from making people mad, if you feel the need to elevate yourself by insulting others, or their work, you have a personality disorder. You need to have it treated.
If you think you can develop a better piece of software, go ahead and do so. On the downside, you will now become the target of the drive-by critics and instant experts. Better read http://www.inc.com/matthew-swyers/stop-drive-by-critics-in-their-tracks.html to help preserve your sanity.
If you think companies are evil, you need to go live in a cave. Make sure to get rid of every item made by a company and every service provided by a company. Being selective about it is just hypocritical.
If you think facts are propaganda, and things that originate in your own twisted mind are facts, you need to get a dictionary.
If you want to boycott everything being developed by Red Hat, please, PLEASE DO SO and stop using the Linux kernel. Seriously, GO AWAY.
89 • @71 @73 (by Adam Williamson on 2013-02-14 19:25:58 GMT from Canada)
Pay attention, folks - here's me responding to a sensible criticism, voiced sensibly ;)
corneliu - so it sounds to me like what happened there is you have the partitions set as btrfs, indeed. The "When I created the root partition (10GB) all was good, then when I created the home partition, the size of the home partition was overwritten with the size of the root partition" clues me in - when it's behaving like that, they're almost certainly set as btrfs.
What's actually happening is quite interesting (and educational!) - I was confused by the same behaviour when I first tried to test btrfs. So btrfs is inherently a containerized format like LVM: containers are called 'volumes' and devices within the containers are 'subvolumes'. In F18, newui's btrfs behaviour is somewhat inflexible: what it does is create a single btrfs volume and then make each partition you set to type 'btrfs' a subvol of that volume.
Now in btrfs-land, subvols do not have sizes - they're not like LVM LVs. This is a bit of a weird concept to wrap your head around at first (it was for me, anyway) but Chris Murphy suggested thinking of subvols as being kind of like subdirectories. Subdirectories don't have sizes either. They're just...markers, really. So a subvol is like that.
So when you're creating several btrfs 'partitions' in F18 custom partitioning, you're creating several subvols of a single volume. Only the volume has a size. So the 'size' displayed next to each btrfs 'partition' (really a subvol) is not the size of that subvol, but the size of the whole btrfs volume - essentially, the space you want to have available for _all the btrfs subvols put together_. So you want to make that size the total *combined* size you want for all your btrfs 'partitions'. Once you understand what anaconda is doing and how volumes and subvols work it kinda makes sense, but if you don't understand that, it's pretty confusing indeed. In F19 this will be a lot clearer - we're adding more information on containerized types to the UI because right now it's pretty difficult to work out what's going on.
So because of how btrfs works, and the fact that newUI in F18 doesn't let you create multiple btrfs volumes if you *really* want to set fixed sizes for btrfs mount points (this should be fixed in F19), you can't actually do exactly what you want to do in F18: you can't have a 'simple, fixed' partition layout with btrfs. If you want solidly fixed partition sizes, you're probably better off going with ext4. You could do it with btrfs in theory, and it'll probably be possible with the F19 UI, by creating multiple btrfs *volumes* and mounting them directly - instead of mounting subvols - but if you think about it, the volume/subvolume approach is pretty flexible and you might prefer it.
90 • Btrfs # 89 (by pfb on 2013-02-14 22:09:13 GMT from United States)
Well, that explains a lot of my problems trying to install F18. I was trying to write into/reformat btrfs partitions! Anaconda probably responded in an expected manner. I was the one who did not expect what happened. When I cleared it our with gparted, it put it all back to ext4. I think I will stay there for a while. Thanks Adam.
91 • @88 Comments (by fernbap on 2013-02-14 22:10:58 GMT from Portugal)
"If you think companies are evil, you need to go live in a cave."
Well, i would say you are oversimplifying. Of course it is in no way "evil" that Red Hat tries to do what is best for Red Hat, or that Cannonical tries to push Unity as the best DE. I wouldn't expect them to do otherwise.
However, i am not forced to believe in their propaganda.
At some point, both Red Hat and Cannonical decided to invest in the tablet/mobile market, perhaps wisely. I have nothing against that. However, i think that pushing tablet/mobile products as the evolution of the desktop computer is mere propaganda, and i am entitled not to believe it.
I don't expect companies to cater me with what i want, but i reserve the freedom to chose not to use their products. What i resent is when that freedom is taken away from me.
Are companies evil? I use to say that 95% of the people working for a corporation are nice, decent people, but unfortunately they are run by the other 5%. And i know that from my own experience in the corporate environment: the higher you go in the hierarchy, the larger the percentage of sociopaths and psychopaths you find, and when you reach the top they are all sociopaths. And they have to be. Corporate business has nothing to do with empathy.
That is why a large and very well known company as Bayer was caught flooding the mexican market with drugs known to have been contaminated with AIDS and removed from the european market. This is just an example.
If you ignore all that, then it is you who are living in a mental cave.
As to the Fedora installer, i didn't like it one bit, but again it is just my opinion. An installer, to be novice friendly, needs to work linearly, not, as someone already said, as a hub. Novice users don't cope with that easily, and so i think the idea behind it is just wrong.
However, it is consistent with Red Hat's position, that had never have anything to do with the novice user, and is consistent with the direction GNOME 3 is going, by removing choices from the user so that only a certified technician can set them. I wouldn't expect differently from Red Hat.
No, things are not as black and white as you are trying to present them.
92 • @91 (by Patrick on 2013-02-14 23:54:07 GMT from United States)
Of course I was oversimplifying, and I don't really disagree with anything you wrote in your post.
I just wanted to call out hypocrites who happily buy stuff and use stuff from evil companies all the time, except, when it involves a company working on open source software, they won't touch it with a stick because it's an evil company.
Seriously, any company that, as a byproduct of its commercial activity, gives you stuff, and mostly very good stuff, for free, without asking for anything back or infringing on your rights... such a company ranks very highly in my book.
If you have a problem with such a company, just because they also want to make a profit, or they make their product the way they like it and not the way you like it, then you surely must be a hypocrite if you at the same time happily do business with the majority of companies that won't give you a thing unless they can rip you off. Since Internet access companies generally rank among the vilest ones in existence, anyone commenting here should have no issue whatsoever with Red Hat.
And no, I have no involvement with Red Hat, and I'm not a user of either Fedora or RHEL. I'm just a reader who is sick and tired of drive-by critics and other idiots who like to vilify an exemplary company that employs many good people who put a lot of hard work into the Linux kernel and base system. If those people had to make a living some other way, instead of being allowed to work on Linux full time, Linux wouldn't be nearly as awesome as it is today.
So, thank you Red Hat. I hope you keep making a good profit so you can keep paying many of the people that make Linux awesome a good wage. They deserve it!
93 • @88 (by Sam Graf on 2013-02-15 00:07:48 GMT from United States)
I'm sympathetic with Patrick's frustration. It does seem that this week's comment section has cleared bew ground in unfriendly banter. It's not clear to me how handing out sarcastic diagnoses improves the environment.
I does all sadden me that "putting the fun back into computing" can get so stressful. Perhaps the politics are inevitable given the current state of affairs.
In any case, regardless of who's right and why, this is all less than motivational, it seems to me. I don't see good things coming out of much here.
94 • @92 (by fernbap on 2013-02-15 00:27:48 GMT from Portugal)
Thank you for your answer. What i was curious to know is about your own choices considering all this.
I am a distrohopper at heart, so i keep experimenting with new distros on a regular basis. However, i keep my working environment as stable as possible.
I am using Mint 13 64 MATE as my working environment since it came out, for several reasons:
1. it is debian based
2. Ubuntu has done a great job in creating a solid and reliable base to build upon
3. Mint is community driven, and offers almost everything i want and the way i want it.
4. Mint 13 is a LTS release
5. Besides being the first to divert from the "recent corporate evil ways", Mint never disappointed me, addressed the issue correctly imho, and i have had no issue whatsoever with it.
95 • @91 (by Adam Williamson on 2013-02-15 02:10:35 GMT from Canada)
"At some point, both Red Hat and Cannonical decided to invest in the tablet/mobile market, perhaps wisely. I have nothing against that. However, i think that pushing tablet/mobile products as the evolution of the desktop computer is mere propaganda, and i am entitled not to believe it."
Um - hold that assumption. RH did not 'decide the invest in the tablet/mobile market'. We're not making any products aimed at that market. So far as I know, we're not planning to. Nothing about the new anaconda UI design has anything to do with tablets or mobiles; that wouldn't make much sense, as interactive installers are rarely used as deployment methods in that space. The new anaconda design was made with good old traditional computers in mind, nothing else.
GNOME 3's design has elements of tablet usability in it, but that was not any kind of directive from On High by RH. As I've written before, RH has no particular stake in controlling GNOME's development. We *sponsor* GNOME development, we don't directly control it; the RH staff who work on GNOME are GNOME developers whose paychecks are written by RH. This should be pretty obvious if you think about it - we don't make much money at all selling desktops, so why would we have much of a strategic interest in how GNOME works? If you want to believe RH is exerting direct influence on some F/OSS components for our own benefits, it'd make much more sense to worry about the kernel or glibc or python or something. Check the news, check RH's financials - we sell enterprise servers and middleware and cloud stuff. We don't sell desktops.
96 • Anathema (by Woody Oaks on 2013-02-15 03:41:52 GMT from United States)
Some years ago I first tried swimming with the penguins and chose a Red Hat disk (7.2 as I remember) because of the frequent association of its name with the Linux kernel. It installed quite easily and worked surprisingly well with my limited skills, so I stayed with it and with other distros ever since. Had I encountered anything like the Anathema Installer back then I would have washed my hands (properly, under the kitchen faucet) of the entire project.
Newbies today are trying Linux much as I did ten years ago and choosing Fedora for the same good reason, but this year they are encountering Anathema which perplexes even the experienced. I have never challenged that installer's ability to overcome the many difficulties posed by new file systems, firmware, or hardware; rather, I have taken issue with its user interface which renders the task of partitioning nearly inscrutable. Others, but not I, have called it “dangerous” and rightly so as I am not the only ten-year veteran who could easily have wiped his entire hard disk: And the neophytes?
No one claims that Red Hat has an obligation to write software installers for the inexperienced or moderately experienced, but an installer made dangerous precisely by its efforts to be newbie-friendly should have given someone there cause for concern. Yet weeks of genuine, constructive complaints seemed to yield no sort of agreement that an unnecessary problem needed to be resolved. The vitriol of DWW posts this week came in response to the fanboy-blasts of denial posted earlier, yet they were still directed at the problem itself and not to the deniers.
My circumstantial arguments certainly violated the bounds of good taste, but they were delivered contra rem ipsam not contra ullum hominem. I never wished a warm and drippy valentine on anyone (and certainly not on this day), nor did I actually receive one: My spirits remain undampened.
Some of the DWW comments posted yesterday and today seem to hint at a change of heart over in the Triangle, but if that is so then we shouldn't suppose it a response to the tenor of exchanges here: Surely they have heard far more, far more pointedly and acerbically from other sources – important sources and not mere jackwagons.
97 • I have no idea why anyone would want to be a part of something so one-sided. (by dreamon on 2013-02-15 04:00:53 GMT from Canada)
64 • The world's a much better place because of..... (by Landor on 2013-02-13 17:00:21 GMT from Canada)
the 'subject' might as well define linux
including
"anyone with a negative opinion that doesn't fit with their agenda and view is an idiot and doesn't have a right to an opinion"
and
"Dollars matter, not you"
hasn't changed in years either
boriiiing.................
98 • oh, the naivety (by Anonymous Coward on 2013-02-15 04:25:16 GMT from United States)
It's amusing to see this fringe element of linux users who rant & rave about "evil companies" and then proclaim their naive "suspicion" of any entity that makes a profit.
How do you eat? Do you work for free? Do you run a farming commune with your neighbors?
Unless you're under 16 or answer 'yes' to all of these questions, wise up and start living in the real world.
99 "Others, but not I, have called it ?dangerous? and rightly so as I am not the only ten-year veteran who could easily have wiped his entire hard disk"
Sorry, but that's just ludicrous. The only way you can wipe any device is if you explicitly select it and choose a 'delete' action, either in custom partitioning or in the reclaim space dialog. In either case it's perfectly clear what you're doing. I have come across precisely zero cases of unintentional data loss with the post-Alpha F18.
Can you please quit the 'Anathema' thing? It's as childish as Micro$oft. Who are you trying to impress?
" Yet weeks of genuine, constructive complaints seemed to yield no sort of agreement that an unnecessary problem needed to be resolved."
Oh for pity's sake, quit the balderdash.
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=883148
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=883150
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=883138
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=883134
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=883195
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=883141
I filed all those *before F18 final even came out*.
Significant anaconda patches to partitioning stuff since F18 based directly on user feedback:
https://lists.fedorahosted.org/pipermail/anaconda-patches/2013-January/002703.html
https://lists.fedorahosted.org/pipermail/anaconda-patches/2013-January/002708.html
https://lists.fedorahosted.org/pipermail/anaconda-patches/2013-January/002742.html
https://lists.fedorahosted.org/pipermail/anaconda-patches/2013-January/002800.html
https://lists.fedorahosted.org/pipermail/anaconda-patches/2013-January/002799.html
https://lists.fedorahosted.org/pipermail/anaconda-patches/2013-January/002803.html
https://lists.fedorahosted.org/pipermail/anaconda-patches/2013-January/002821.html
https://lists.fedorahosted.org/pipermail/anaconda-patches/2013-January/002908.html
https://lists.fedorahosted.org/pipermail/anaconda-patches/2013-January/002911.html
https://lists.fedorahosted.org/pipermail/anaconda-patches/2013-January/002912.html
https://lists.fedorahosted.org/pipermail/anaconda-patches/2013-January/002913.html
https://lists.fedorahosted.org/pipermail/anaconda-patches/2013-February/002969.html
https://lists.fedorahosted.org/pipermail/anaconda-patches/2013-February/002978.html
https://lists.fedorahosted.org/pipermail/anaconda-patches/2013-February/003067.html
and those are just the ones I find by eyeballing the list archives.
The frickin' *release announcement* for Fedora 18 says:
"While the new installer should work well for most users in most configurations, there are inevitably a few teething problems in the first release of such a major revision: see the introductory guide to the new installer which includes a list of known limitations of the new installer in Fedora 18, and known significant bugs for more information. We welcome your constructive and specific feedback as we continue to work on refining the installer for future releases."
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/F18_release_announcement
In all honesty, your assertion couldn't be further from the truth. We have been saying loudly and clearly since before F18 came out that the new UI is a first cut and we are aware there are some issues with it and we are already working to improve them for future releases. You have to be pretty damn intransigent to maintain that we haven't.
"Surely they have heard far more, far more pointedly and acerbically from other sources ? important sources and not mere jackwagons."
It has nothing to do with how 'pointed' or 'acerbic' you are. And your importance is determined mostly by the quality of your feedback. No. As I keep saying, the thing is - as the release announcement put it - to be "constructive and specific". Your posts in this thread could not be less specific or more constructive. In amongst all the assumptions about the motivations of the anaconda developers, the florid crap like "My circumstantial arguments certainly violated the bounds of good taste", and the entirely egregious Latin, there is not a single specific, constructive item of feedback. Not. A. Single. Solitary. One. Nothing. Nada. If I can be permitted a moment of pretentiousness, your posts are, indeed, "full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing".
100 • A constructive, specific recommendation as requested (by Fossilizing Dinosaur on 2013-02-15 11:32:28 GMT from United States)
"I'm not a PR person. If I was, I should be fired immediately, because I'd be a bloody terrible one." ... "Posting here is not part of my job, and I'm not being paid for it."
Perhaps you should find someone more tactful and politically astute to proofread your comments before posting? Otherwise, according to one poster, "If you derive pleasure from making people mad, if you feel the need to elevate yourself by insulting others, or their work, you have a personality disorder. You need to have it treated." At the least you may find yourself paid not to post. Must it come to that?
Consider this: a firm puts out beta software that forces users into testing a particular feature; people complain, the company unrepentantly stands firm - and is respected as such. Resented, perhaps, but respected.
Let the carpings and whinings go unattended; they will fade and die. Give in to compulsion, and they will multiply. Your call.
Trolls feed on attention.
101 • Are distributions meant for test novice friendly? (by dbrion on 2013-02-15 14:35:20 GMT from France)
First, I would like to thank A.Williamson for his clear explanations of how ana{conda|theme} {displays|does not show} the sizes of partitions... and for knowing FC19 will be better (FC17 works good for me: there are a lot of interesting applications to discover. and I can wait 6 -or even better,9- months)
As I have a fully working FC on a netbook, I did not feel necessary to install a FC18; many reviewers (among them, Jesse} conforted this feeling.
FC is not meant for novices, making the argument "it is not novice -friendly" meaningless.... There are lots of distributions which are novice friendly (or live CDs/DVDs, making installation issues fully irrelevent).
Once installed, and every application one needs installed, every body will be happy with Fedora -if the application works-. Thus, installation phases (maybe 5 minutes-2 hours if one is accustomed to this exercise) and the using phases (more or less happy months/years) should be considered as two distinct things....
102 • @100 (by Adam Williamson on 2013-02-15 17:43:05 GMT from Canada)
I could do that, sure. I choose not to. Because I post here for my own personal enjoyment (hard as that may be to believe, some days...), not for the purpose of improving RH's image. I don't derive pleasure from making people mad. Nothing I've written should make anyone mad. If you want to have a public discussion in a public comment thread, you should come prepared to defend your assertions, and gracefully disclaim those you can't support. If you have a problem with doing that, you really shouldn't go around making public proclamations about things. I didn't start this discussion; Woody Oaks started it, by writing something which certainly could legitimately make people mad. I only challenged his unsupported and incorrect assertions.
Sometimes I get stuff wrong. When someone challenges something I've said and I can't support it, I'm happy to withdraw it. I don't get _mad_ about it. I'm not personally invested in that kind of thing. That's the mindset I work from, I guess. People are always being wrong on the internet. If someone's so deeply attached to an incorrect perception of reality that having its incorrectness pointed out is enough to make them mad, maybe _they_ have the problem, not me?
"Consider this: a firm puts out beta software that forces users into testing a particular feature; people complain, the company unrepentantly stands firm - and is respected as such. Resented, perhaps, but respected. "
Fedora 18 is not a beta. It meets the release requirements for a Fedora final release, which are public, as is the entire process for deciding them. We do not force anyone into testing anything; Fedora releases are supported for the lifetime of the next Fedora release plus one month, specifically so that if you want to skip a release while maintaining support, you can. You don't even have to use something other than Fedora if you want to not use newUI; you can just stick with Fedora 17. And I disagree with your take on the response to such a hypothetical scenario in any case; personally, I prefer dealing with companies whose real staff are free to talk frankly to me, than a company which communicates exclusively through the kind of PR mouthpieces Landor detests so. I'd rather have a full and frank discussion with the person writing the code I want to discuss than an exquisitely polite discussion with a PR drone who'll file my questions in the round filing cabinet as soon as I get off the phone. So, er, sorry, but I'll be posting in public forums and speaking my mind - as I've done since before I worked for any tech company - right up until someone stops me. :)
103 • @100 (by just curious on 2013-02-15 17:55:29 GMT from United States)
Just curious, exactly who "forces" anyone into using any particular distro?:
What type of coercion is involved?
104 • @100 (by Fossilizing Dinosaur on 2013-02-15 19:35:44 GMT from United States)
For the record, in the example given: the firm was not RedHat, their software was not an OS/distro.
Before I forget, Adam Williamson's comments on btrfs illustrate a very helpful and educational contribution to DW discussion.
105 • A general response. (by Antony on 2013-02-15 21:39:15 GMT from United Kingdom)
Isn't it strange (or not), that some highly outspoken people who wail
about 'freedom' and 'equality' are probably some of the greediest,
selfish and uncompromising people you could meet?
Why would a person say that such and such 'does not respect my freedoms'? MY freedoms? What exactly are your particular freedoms and who bestowed them upon you?
As far as I am concerned, all people are due exactly the same
universal and fundamental rights. Regardless of who we are, or what our particular desires or needs might be, these rights do not differ from person to person. Whether these rights are compromised is another matter, but nobody has a different, or unique, set of rights from another person.
So, why would you not instead simply say 'does not respect our
freedoms', or 'people's freedoms' - because surely, your freedoms and rights would be my freedoms and rights? Perhaps you do not, because you might acknowledge that the thing you claim is your right - is actually your personal desire, rather than something considered as a universal and fundamental human right common to all.
Freedoms/rights/equality seem to nowadays be synonymous with the idea that it is unfair to be denied anything whatsoever. This is a recipe for disaster. And incidentally, to not be denied anything (have/take what you like - regardless) actually constitutes a form of slavery. It also erodes responsibility.
All this selfishness and lack of responsibility is exactly why you
have this absurd situation where people honk on like spoilt children,
who demand everything, are never satisfied and if things do not go
right for them, then someone or something else is to blame - naturally.
'Forced to use......' That is hard to fathom - surely you have chosen to use it. Who forced you to use it - and who continues to force you to 'test someone's alpha/beta software'? It seems you will not accept the responsibility of your own free choice.
I don't agree that Patrick was being sarcastic.
Political correctness is not required - and is counter-productive. it just makes matters worse.
I think this flare-up was inevitable and that some straight-talking was/is needed to maybe get some people to actually get a grip - to be reasonable and realistic. Crikey, you would generally suppose that Linux users/advocates are sufficiently curious, capable and free to have ever used Linux in the first place and to continue to use it.......but, you wouldn't think so when you are confronted with certain comments!
Unfortunately, there will always be some who will relish a contest or a fight and enjoy demonstrating their 'cleverness' or 'strength' over others. Hence examples of clever-dick talking-in-riddles or spouting Latin: such a person is obviously more concerned with demonstrating their cleverness, than any really meaningful wish to engage.
WE are Linux users - we, us. Let's try and remember that. However, if your primary reason for posting here is to demonstrate your cleverness and lord it over those you consider to be beneath you in terms of experience/knowledge/education/Latin/puzzle-solving or, heck, as ignorant slaves of this or that evil, unable to make grown-up choices........then I echo Patrick's sentiment: GO AWAY! Go away and demonstrate your superior ethics/morals/intellect to someone who might actually be impressed.
106 • [Short version] new Fedora installer UI (by Fossilizing Dinosaur on 2013-02-15 22:07:02 GMT from United States)
So, to connect the dots, Fedora 18 (including newUI) is not a beta, we don't need to do usability testing (on a completely redesigned user experience) before we release, and all these complaints about an unintelligible, incomprehensible or counter-intuitive GUI are entirely unwarranted, unhelpful and unexpected?
In this day and age, is failure to user-test a prototype simulation before release appropriate?
(Stipulated: Woody's carping was unnecessarily offensive.)
(I did find one assertion that supports this rationalization: "A Fedora feature being incomplete, in and of itself, does not constitute a blocker bug.")
If it's not a beta, what is it? Would you call it polished?
107 • After this weeks comments have been mostly a waste of time, like so many things (by Barnabyh on 2013-02-15 22:31:13 GMT from United Kingdom)
On that note, I can heartily recommend Slackware-current which now has KDE 4.10 since 12/02, not bad considering most distributions are still waiting to incorporate it.
As a vanilla distro you get the full experience exactly as intended by upstream developers. I'm more of an Openbox guy these days but this is marvellous, although when compared to OB there's still a bit of lag.
108 • @106 (by Adam Williamson on 2013-02-15 23:34:32 GMT from Canada)
"So, to connect the dots, Fedora 18 (including newUI) is not a beta"
Correct.
"we don't need to do usability testing (on a completely redesigned user experience) before we release"
Sorta correct. It depends what you mean by 'usability testing', really. I said _formal_ usability testing - i.e. usability testing done in a controlled physical environment, in a formalized way. That's really pretty rare in F/OSS development taken overall; I don't want to get into specifics in case I'm wrong in any particular case, but to put it generally, I think it's right to say the majority of F/OSS apps rarely undergo any formal usability testing at all, including very major ones. Obviously it'd be nice to be doing this regularly and rigorously, but it's a pretty onerous thing to organize, and Fedora is still a fairly small project that moves very fast. Put the way you put it, sure, that sounds kinda bad, but bear in mind, most F/OSS stuff gets released without any formal usability testing. It's not unusual.
Then there's _informal_ usability testing, of course, which has been going on ever since we made a newUI image available to anyone, and continues to go on. As I keep saying, the anaconda team is continuously improving the details of newUI based on user feedback. We have never at any point said or acted like 'it's done and if you don't like it, tough'.
"all these complaints about an unintelligible, incomprehensible or counter-intuitive GUI are entirely unwarranted, unhelpful and unexpected"
Entirely incorrect, and I have said the contrary _numerous_ times in this thread and elsewhere. The point is that there are complaints that are useful and constructive and helpful, and complaints that are unfounded or just so vague as to be useless.
See the giant pile of links I pasted above: I should have mentioned that all those bugs I filed were based on user feedback, principally on things that arose in discussion in the Fedora forums, which I was reading daily during the F18 test cycle. All those patches I linked to are the result of similar feedback and/or direct bug reports from F18 users. And those are just the partitioning patches, and just UI changes - I left several changes to other areas of the UI, and several fixes for commonly-encountered issues that aren't UI design stuff, out of the list to avoid it growing too long.
Sorry to keep banging this drum, but apparently I'm not banging it hard enough: we love constructive criticism, and we are actively taking as much of it as we can find into account in constant ongoing work to revise newUI. If you find an F19 snapshot (I'm not going to make it too easy, as F19 is still very pre-Alpha and not something you should poke unless you know what you're doing), you'll see that newUI has already changed pretty significantly from F18 (if you read the descriptions on all those patches I linked to, you can get a feel for some of the changes), and much of that change is directly in response to the constructive feedback we've got from F18 users.
So no, 'all these complaints' (though you're rather vague about what complaints you're talking about) are not 'unwarranted and unhelpful'. Many of them have been very helpful. *Some* complaints are unwarranted and/or unhelpful. As you acknowledged, Woody's fall into this category: they are insulting and, more to the point, contain absolutely no details. You can read Woody's comments and understand that he doesn't like newUI, but what you can't do is get any information _at all_ on what it is he doesn't like and wants to see changed. So what can we possibly do in response to his feedback? Fire the entire development team? That's not going to happen.
"(I did find one assertion that supports this rationalization: "A Fedora feature being incomplete, in and of itself, does not constitute a blocker bug.")"
It's perfectly understandable, but you're actually taking that rather out of context. It's a bit of an inside-baseball thing. It's to do with separation between what we call the 'blocker review process' and the 'feature process': it's a much more limited declaration than it might read as, if you don't know the context. Really it just means that, if a feature being incomplete is a big problem, then it's up to FESCo (as the body that oversees the feature process) to deal with that problem, rather than being a part of the blocker review process (which is overseen by the QA, release engineering, and development teams). It doesn't mean a feature being incomplete can't block release, just that it would have to do so through FESCo rather than through the blocker review process. It's rather irrelevant to the current question anyway, as the newUI feature is considered 'complete' in Fedora 18, by the terms of the feature process. That doesn't mean newUI is done and will never change, but it means the feature as described was completed: all the things that the feature claimed would be done, are done.
"If it's not a beta, what is it? Would you call it polished?"
It's a final release. I'd say that so far as the installer goes, in some respects, it's less polished than some previous releases. Though 'polished' is a rather unhelpfully vague term, I've found over the years: is something 'polished' if it looks great but is hard to understand? Or if it looks great but crashes a lot? What if it's really reliable and understandable but looks like ass on toast? 'Polished', like 'snappy', is one of those words that people frequently deploy in ways so vague as to be meaningless...
Anyway, now you're touching on a topic that's quite close to my heart: release process philosophy, let's call it. Imagine you're the release manager or something for some piece of software that has a time-based release schedule. How do you decide when a release is 'done'? It's pretty impractical to hold out for every release to be the best release ever in all possible respects. (Especially, to bring it back to specifics, in the case of a Linux distro like Fedora, where we have 10,000+ moving parts to try and take care of). What you have to do is draw some kind of 'minimum acceptable quality' line, and say 'if something has reached that line, we can ship it'. Sometimes, Release N will get significantly past that line, and Release N+1 or N+2 will just barely scrape over it. That's a thing that happens, and you just have to make your peace with it. So far as the installation process goes, F18 is a release that scraped over the 'acceptable quality' line in some ways. That's why I tried to ensure the release documentation amply telegraphed this fact, and took the trouble to try and make sure there was good documentation around how to use the new installer and some of the known problems in it.
Drawing the 'acceptable quality line' is a fascinating problem in itself. Fedora's is encapsulated in the https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_Release_Criteria , something I spend an unhealthy amount of time working on; I'm currently working on entirely overhauling the presentation to be clearer. Still, I'm pretty proud of the fact we make a pretty ambitious effort to draw a clear, comprehensive, solidly-enforced-in-policy line there.
109 • @108 What can we possibly do in response? (by Fossilizing Dinosaur on 2013-02-16 01:29:02 GMT from United States)
Well, next time some woodynhead expresses frustration, instead of venting, like
"how's about you do your job entirely in public, and if I don't like it, ..., I'll come and piss over all your hard work? Does that sound like something you'd enjoy?"
(which perpetuates the acrimony), instead show professionalism, self-discipline and maturity:
empathize with that frustration, ask for clarification, and provide a link for reporting issues [as recommended by Patrick's link http://www.inc.com/matthew-swyers/stop-drive-by-critics-in-their-tracks.html ]
110 • @109 (by Adam Williamson on 2013-02-16 02:38:25 GMT from Canada)
He didn't 'express frustration', though. That's my big problem. What he did is exactly what I suggested he did: took a big whizz all over someone's hard work. "Anathema's GUI is a silly, incomprehensible mess, and that is readily apparent to anyone who tries to use it. It seems, though, that the crowd responsible for it is choosing to ignore the obvious. This doesn't bode well for the Distribution. Any guesses as to which end of the Anaconda Anathema was extruded?" is not expressing frustration, it is being hurtful and offensive. Calling it 'silly', saying the developers are 'choosing to ignore the obvious', and the stupid crack about 'which end of the Anaconda' - all of that is pure insult, and questioning the good faith of people who are working hard. I'm not going to let that pass uncommented: if you don't call out people who act like asshats on the internet, they consider it a pass to continue acting like an asshat on the internet.
111 • @109 cont. (by Adam Williamson on 2013-02-16 02:52:58 GMT from Canada)
BTW, I'm not just pulling this out of my ass - have you noticed how few major developers comment on places like this, the major distro forums, Phoronix, all these kinds of places? You ever see a comment from Linus here? Alan Cox? Adam Jackson? Ted T'so? Etc, etc, etc? You know why that is? Because of people like Woody. When there are enough such people writing enough such drivel, they just can't work up the motivation to wade through it any more. I know dozens of the people who actually do a lot of the heavy lifting in the F/OSS world - not just RH staff / Fedora hackers, but people from many projects - who don't read the discussions in places like this because of the terrible signal to noise ratio and the prevalence of the kind of crappy comment we're discussing here. They just don't feel like it's worth their time to sift through all the crap in search of the nugget of gold. So you want more of the people who actually work on F/OSS stuff to join in here and in other prominent public discussions? Then help raise the standard of the discourse, and don't tolerate the crap. It has a cost, leaving it alone is not a free action.
BTW, my interpretation of the link you post is rather different; it doesn't say anything about 'empathizing with that frustration'. I think it's pretty good advice overall, in fact, but personally I guess I like to be a bit more up-front about telling people who are being asshats that they're being asshats, rather than doing it subtly. :) My initial post was pretty much a snarkier and more passive-aggressive version of what that post suggests. I could stand to be less snarky and passive-aggressive sometimes, I know. Eh.
112 • prominent discussion here?! that would be a waste of time (by dreamon on 2013-02-16 03:07:23 GMT from Canada)
110 • @109 (by Adam Williamson on 2013-02-16 02:38:25 GMT from Canada)
"So you want more of the people who actually work on F/OSS stuff to join in here and in other prominent public discussions? Then help raise the standard of the discourse, and don't tolerate the crap. It has a cost, leaving it alone is not a free action'.
113 • Anaconda (by Terence on 2013-02-16 03:14:36 GMT from China)
I do not mind the new installer personally, I think it looks like quite beautiful. However, my suggestion might be to move the root password creation "button" to the main menu where I also set my time zone, keyboard and partition. Another "grievance" I might have is that it appears there is no longer an option to set a boot loader password, which I like to use.
114 • @113 (by Adam Williamson on 2013-02-16 03:29:28 GMT from Canada)
Hi Terence. The root password spoke was put in the installation phase to save you time - you can set the root password while package installation is going on. The idea is that we can put more stuff in that phase, in future. Is there a reason you think it'd be better to have it happen before the package install starts?
The option to set a bootloader password interactively does seem to have gone, yeah (you can still do it in a kickstart, note) - I don't know the story behind that, I'll check into it.
115 • 114 (by Terence on 2013-02-16 05:50:40 GMT from China)
Well, my own opinion suggests that the root password creation phase should be one of the spokes so to speak, and thus should appear on the same screen as the other spokes. When I first installed Fedora, I honestly didn't even notice it on the installation screen. I really think in the time being, all spokes (since there are so few of them anyway) should all be on the same screen. Thank you for asking my opinion.
116 • @115 (by Adam Williamson on 2013-02-16 05:55:51 GMT from Canada)
The intent is actually kind of the other way - to add _more_ things to the 'during-install' hub, so you can create user accounts there if you want to, for instance. That would probably work out for you too, right? If there's more things there, you're more likely to notice them.
117 • 116 (by Terence on 2013-02-16 10:28:37 GMT from China)
I understand that you perhaps did it for future consideration, but until that happens, I guess it just makes more sense to keep everything confined on one page. There is plenty of room available and those slightly orange hazard warning type indicators all on the same page would stand out exactly what still needs to be completed, before hitting the "install" button.
118 • Gnome 2 and Cairo (by greg on 2013-02-16 14:38:54 GMT from United States)
No matter what distro I try, my favorites have 2 things in common. They are Gnome 2 and Cairo dock. So, Fuduntu makes me very happy on a newer computer. On an older computer, that doesn't have the RAM or CPU to handle it, I find myself installing an older version of a distro with Gnome 2, and then adding Cairo to it. I hope that these 2 items are maintained for a very long time.
119 • Fedora installer (by corneliu on 2013-02-16 18:31:19 GMT from Canada)
@Adam
Thank you for the explaining the btrfs stuff. Now it all makes sense. The reason for a separate /home partition is that I never upgrade, but install a fresh new version in the root partition and keep the home partition with all the settings in place. I don't know how reliable the upgrade stuff is now but many years ago I had bad experience with upgrades. I just hope there will be no issues with the flexible partitions when I keep my /home partition next time when I install Fedora 19.
120 • @119 (by Adam Williamson on 2013-02-17 04:41:29 GMT from Canada)
Yeah, the 're-use /home' case is a pretty common one. I can't think of any reason it wouldn't work with a btrfs subvol, should be fine.
Number of Comments: 120
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